
. JN?.. 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2011 with funding from 
The Library of Congress 



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IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

SKETCHES OF TRAVEL 
IN SOUTH AMERICA 
AND WESTERN EUROPE 

By JOSEPH E. WING 

AUTHOR OF 
"MEADOWS AND PASTURES," 

"ALFALFA IN AMERICA," 
"SHEEP FARMING IN AMERICA," 
AND STAFF CORRESPONDENT 
OF THE BREEDER'S GAZETTE 



X 



CHICAGO: 

THE BREEDER'S GAZETTE 

1913 






COPYRIGHT, 1913. 

SANDERS PUBLISHING CO. 

All rig'hts reserved. 



(CI.A347427 

Kof 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 

Bound for South America 13 

Crossing the Equator 23 

Land in Sight 25 

Landing at Bahia 26 

Impressions of Rio de Janeiro ■ 34 

The Port of Santos 42 

On the Way to Sao Paulo 43 

The Plateau of Sao Paulo 45 

The City of Sao Paulo 47 

Argentina 53 

On the Rio de La Plata 54 

Buenos Aires 56 

The Spirit of the Camp 57 

Again Southward Bound 58 

Sheep in Chilian Territory 61 

Land Laws of Chili 64 

A "Frigorifico" 67 

In Patagonia 70 

A Carnival Week 77 

An Estanciero and His Garden 80 

El Camino Del Lana — A Highway 84 

Farming on the Rio Gallegos 87 

Early Days In Patagonia 88 

A Patagonian Estancta 90 

An Old Colonist, John Scott 98 

Romney Sheep in Patagonia 100 

Prices of Wool and Mutton 102 

A Minister's Weary Pilgrimages 103 

Back in the Andes 104 

Santa Cruz 105 

Drinking "Mate" .• 107 

Senor Behr Again 109 

Port Deseado 110 

Along the Coast of Argentina 113 

A Patagonian Pioneer 115 

Sheep Breeding in Santa Cruz 118 

At Rivadavia 119 

(3) 



4 TABLE OP CONTENTS 

port madryn 121 

a typical ranch . . . 124 

Trelew and the Welsh Colony 130 

the galenses and their calamity 133 

The Territory of Chubut 134 

Farming Along the Chubut River 136 

Senor Errecoborde 153 

A Native Gauciio's Estancia 156 

An English Chacra 157 

The Old Indian Governor 159 

My Plea and His Excellency 161 

A Wayside Drinking Place 162 

A Fresh Start < 164 

A Welsh House 165 

Mail at Last! 167 

A School 167 

"Vamos a Madryn, Manana" 168 

children of the andes 170 

His Excellency and I Converse 170 

Buenos Aires Again 172 

Hotel Life in Buenos Aires 174 

A Market in Buenos Aires 175 

Dining at Chacabuco 176 

Spanish Conversation 178 

The Avenida 179 

Life in Buenos Aires 180 

Senora X. from Boston 182 

Young Argentinos 184 

the Shops of Buenos Aires 185 

Government in South America 186 

An Official and a Big Pear 188 

We Are Not Elder Brothers 190 

My Interpreter 192 

The Argentine Plain 195 

The Work of the Farmer 197 

A Camp Town 198 

Rosario 199 

The Thrift of the Colonist 201 

Rio Parana *. \ 203 

Estancia Santa Rosa 204 

An Easter Day Parade 209 

Santa Fe 210 

The Intervention in Santa Fe. 211 

Santa Fe and its Gardens 214 



TABLE OF CONTENTS O 

CROSSING THE RIVER 215 

Two Days in Entre Rios 216 

On the Road in Entre Rios 218 

La Peregrina 221 

At La Cabezas 227 

On a Slow Train in Entre Rios 228 

In Concordia 229 

South American Street Etiquette 231 

By Rail through Uruguay 236 

At Monte Casares 239 

curuzu cuatia 241 

G. Norman Leslie's Estancia 244 

Northward in Corrientes 249 

Exploring Corrientes 252 

Making Mosaic Tiles 253 

Recrossing the Great River 256 

THE CHACO 258 

Timber Cutting in the Chaco 260 

Indians and English in the Chaco 262 

Italian Colonists 265 

Maize and Farm Wages 266 

Cost of Growing Wheat 268 

Buenos Aires in May 273 

The Botanical Garden 276 

To Bahia Blanca 279 

At Choele-Choele 282 

Along the Rio Negro 285 

A Crude Ferry 286 

A Desert Estancia 288 

Traces of Welsh Colonists 293 

Construction Work in Cement 296 

Estancia San Ramon 298 

A Flock of Lincoln Sheep 302 

A Day at Curamalan 304 

Terrible Relics of Drouth 306 

Some High-Class Shire Horses 309 

Eastward from Bahia Blanca 311 

A Day Among the Basques 314 

A Church and Some Trees 317 

Mutton a Popular Food 319 

Lincoln Sheep Prices 321 

The Story of Sarmiento 322 

An Argentine School Teacher 328 

In an Argentine Garden 331 



b TABLE OF CONTENTS 

An Estancia Butcher 333 

The Gibson Estancia 335 

[n Western Buenos Aires 339 

Over Alfalfa Fields 344 

Flocks on Alfalfa 348 

The Woes of Colonists 350 

Estancia La Anita 352 

Cattle and Prices at La Anita 355 

The Work of the Vaqueros 358 

The Plague of Locusts 360 

roadmaking and fences 362 

Frigorificos and Packers 364 

Glimpses of Montevideo 369 

Uruguayan Agricultural College 373 

By Rail to Montevideo 375 

Revolutions in Uruguay 377 

Impressions of Trinidad 378 

The Life of the Camp 381 

The Management of an Estancia 383 

Estancia Methods and Practices 384 

Over Uruguayan Pastures 386 

Where Herefords Thrive 387 

An Attractive Whitewash 390 

The Rich Soil of Uruguay 391 

Memories of Santa Ana 393 

Home Life on an Estancia 395 

Crossing of Breeds of Sheep 402 

Market Stock Values in Uruguay 404 

A Government Dinner 406 

Climatic Contrasts 408 

Bound for Great Britain 409 

At Rio de Janeiro 410 

The Peak of Tenerife 416 

Landing at Plymouth, England 418 

Through Devonshire 421 

From England's Sunny Isle 422 

An English Rural Community 429 

The Practice of Chalking Land 431 

Fertile Fields in Kent 433 

A Village Inn 436 

Profits from Farming in Kent : 438 

The Kew Gardens in London 441 

English Railway Travel , 444 

A British Stock Farm 449 



TABLE OF CONTENTS / 

Crops on A Scotch Farm 452 

Over# Heathery Slopes 455 

Macbetii's Castle 456 

The Gardens at Lawton 458 

Cross-bred Sheep in Scotland 401 

In the County of York 466 

Returns from a Farm Flock 469 

An Historic Farm 475 

In Sunny France 481 

A Few DAys in Paris 482 

In La Perche 484 

Driving in Rural France ' 488 

At a French Farmer's Home 491 

Through a French Forest 494 

Glimpses of a French Farm 497 

Sugar Beets and Sheep 499 

Revisiting a French Farmer 502 

Among Dishley Merino Flocks 503 

A Beautiful French Garden 508 

A Great French Plain 513 

Rambouillet Sheep 516 

Farming in La Beauce 518 

A Farm Credit Society 521 

The Use of Chalk 525 

A Visit to Germany 526 

The River Rhine 528 

A Farmyard in Saxony 533 

The German Character 536 

A German Farm 539 

A German Crop Rotation 542 

Homeward Bound 544 

The Coming of the Pilot 546 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 

ESTANCIA PEONS' QUARTERS FRONTISPIECE 

Boatmen Meeting the Ship at Bahia 27 

Indian Corn in the Interior of Brazil 41 

Shearing Sheds and Dipping Vat 69 

Frigorifico on Straits of Magellan 69 

A Patagonian Ranch House 91 

Cross-bred Romney Sheep 92 

Panorama of Puerto Madryn .• 122 

Home of an Estanciero in Chubut 125 

Hauling Pelts 125 

Short-horn Sale at Buenos Aires 173 

Lincoln Ram at Buenos Aires 207 

Harvest in Argentina 269 

Laborers' Camp 289 

Cow Heed at a Water-Trough 289 

Gaucho or Native Cowboy 334 

Alfalfa Stacking, Blanca Manca 345 

An Argentine Estancia 353 

"Inn of the Good Mistress" 361 

Dipping Tank in Argentina 365 

Argentine Cowboy's Mount 366 

Oats in Kent, England 425 

Hickman's Farm in Kent 425 

Laborers' Cottages in Scotland 447 

Shropshires at "Tom" Buttar's 447 

Scottish Lads and Lassies 459 

Border Leicesters at Perth 460 

Miss McGregor at Breakfast 465 

Lincolnshire Pastures 473 

Kentish Farm-House 473 

Soissonais Merino Ram 505 

French Shepherd and Dishley Merinos 506 

On the Farm of M. Delacour 509 

Entrance to Thirolun-Soreati's 515 

Rambouillets at Thirouin-Soreau's 519 

King's Farm, Saxony 533 

German Barnyard 535 

German Thresher Women 535 

Merino Flock of Herr Otto Gadegast 537 

Farmyard Scene in Saxony 541 

(9) 



PUBLISHER'S PREFACE. 

In presenting this volume of sketches of foreign 
travel by Mr. Wing, it may be stated that it em- 
bodies the author's personal observations on vari- 
ous subjects, as reflected by a diary kept throughout 
a long journey undertaken in behalf of the United 
States Government in connection with the Tariff 
Board's study of comparative wool-production costs 
at home and abroad. 

The author sailed in the spring of 1911 from 
New York to Buenos Aires — touching at Brazilian 
ports — thence to Pnnta Arenas on the Straits .of 
Magellan; explored parts of Patagonia and the 
Southern Provinces of Argentina ; returning to the 
Rio de la Plata and investigating farming and ranch 
conditions in Northern Argentina and Uruguay. 
Ordered thence to Europe, he visited important pas- 
toral districts in England, Scotland, France and 
Germany; returning to New York in the fall, and 
filing with the Board an extended and most illu- 
minating account of flock husbandry as carried on 
in the countries visited. 

It will of course be understood that in this vol- 
ume he has not incorporated the valuable data of a 
practical character gathered for and turned over to 
the authorities at Washington. 



j/neibo 




MR. WING'S SOUTH AMERICAN TRAIL. 



IN FOREIGN FIELDS. 

BOUND FOE SOUTH AMERICA. 

Foreign travel ought no doubt to be undertaken 
deliberately, after due thought and much prepara- 
tion. I had no such opportunity. I was an em- 
ploye of our Uncle Samuel, engaged in studying 
the production of sheep and wool. I was in Colo- 
rado when I received a telegram asking me if I 
could sail for Argentina on a very near day. Five 
minutes' reflection convinced me that I could make 
the boat. There would be nearly a month on board 
ship — ample time in which to learn the Spanish- 
language, for I could already say "bueno" and "Si, 
Sehor, " the rest would be easy. I wired to Uncle 
Sam that I would be ready. 

Just to show how easy it is after all to go any- 
where,^ stopped in Chicago and bought some rough 
clothes, not too rough, for shipboard, a suit of 
white flannels for the tropics, a pair of deck shoes 
with rubber soles, and an extra number of shirts 
and collars, for on a long voyage one can only get 
rough laundry work done. In three hours then I 
was ready, after a fashion. It is well on shipboard 
to have along a dinner coat or Tuxedo for evening 
wear, but I, being a farmer, forgot this ; afterward I 
should have been happier with it. 



14 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

From Chicago I went home, for a flying visit of 
only a few hours, while my wife between smiles and 
tears packed my things for the journey; then on to 
Washington I went to get instructions and have a 
word from President Taft. I find in my note book 
this reference to the President: 

"He was very busy, and I was dismayed to see 
the lot of men who were waiting to see him. Surely 
there ought to be a way of avoiding this waste of a 
President's time. He impresses me as being a 
splendid type of American, big of body, mind and 
heart. He was very kind and took such interest in 
my prospective journey. We talked of Canadian 
reciprocity; he asking my opinion of how it would 
affect the American farmer, and told me that he 
hoped by reciprocity to head off the proposed Ca- 
nadian preferential tariff with England, as well as 
to cement commercially at least the Canadian and the 
American people. He is a great, strong man; to 
know him is to honor and love him. ' ' 

In New York I spent a night, and the nest morn- 
ing found the Steamer Verdi docked over in Brook- 
lyn. She did not appear to be a large boat, but trim 
and seaworthy. The docks were fragrant with cof- 
fee spilled in unloading, and already one felt that 
he was in a foreign atmosphere. Pleasant English 
stewards received me and carried my traps to my 
little cabin ; the purser came to welcome me and the 
head steward had letters for me — those inexpres- 
sibly precious steamer letters from friends and dear 
ones. 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 15 

It was Jan. 20, 1911, and a fine winter's day. 

The Verdi was a beauty, all white and green, 
almost like a yacht. The passengers numbered per- 
haps 125 persons, and looked interesting. The fate- 
ful time arrived ; the gang plank was drawn ashore ; 
the lines cast off; our little tug drew us slowly out 
into the harbor ; our own engines began their throb- 
bing, easy at first, then bolder and stronger; we 
steamed down the bay; the air blew damp and chill 
from off the salt sea ; New York with its towers of 
Babel sunk lower and lower; — we were off. 

Then began the making of acquaintances, the get- 
ting used to one's' cabin, the re-reading of letters, 
the going to meals, the walking of the deck for ex- 
ercise — all the things that make up life on ship- 
board. I am never ill on ship, so I did not miss a 
meal, although I long ago learned that one can eat 
ten times as much as is good for him on a ship. 
The meals are ample and tempting and one usually 
is hungry. 

From my journal I quote : 

"Jan. 21: Near lunch time. There is a little 
mist of rain and some sea, although the sun has 
shone this morning and it has been fine. We have 
been sitting on deck wrapped in our rugs talking. 
While we sat there two ships came up mistily before 
us and soon afterward disappeared in the smothery 
haze. Ships have a provoking way of keeping apart 
from one another; our captain tells me that he con- 
siders a mile and a half a safe distance between 
two vessels ! The waves are rather fine. Our ship 



16 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

begins to get up a vigorous pitching motion. The 
thing to do if one at first feels the motion is to go 
to his berth and lie. down. 

' ' 3 :20 p. m. : What a splendid sight outside ! Tre- 
mendous swells ; wet with rain ; the sun occasionally 
shining through in the west; too rough to walk the 
deck. Not many passengers to lunch. Merciful 
heavens! How she does roll! I have to hold my 
typewriter with one hand, else it would slide off the 
end of my suit case, on which it rests. 

" Jan. 22 : How fine it is ! Still a good deal of sea 
and the wind fresh, but no storm. The second of- 
ficer and I had the table to ourselves last night at 
dinner, and only four passengers came down. There 
is a delightful girl from Denver, going to marry an 
old comrade, an American young man in Buenos 
Aires. I am sorry to say it but the bride-to-be looks 
decidedly wan and pale this morning, and I think 
longs for the dry land of Denver, or any other good 
dry land. Very few this morning at breakfast. There 
is an old Brazilian — Senor Da Silva — on board; he 
speaks fairly good English and is a Presbyterian! 
He is interesting and very courteous; I love to 
walk and talk with him. Why is it, I wonder, that 
we Americans are the least courteous people on 
earth? It is warm, warm already. There is now 
no need of steamer rugs. We are about as far south 
as Charleston and we feel the Gulf Stream. The 
bugle calls us to church ; the service is the Episcopal, 
the same on all English and most American ships. 
It is almost warm enough to shed one's waistcoat. 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 17 

"Jan. 23: The sea is calm this morning; every- 
one is on deck and happy. I go to my bath at 6, 
■soak a little while in hot water and then spray in 
cold; it is a great luxury. At our table curiously 
enough are three captains of industry : a Mr. G. of 
California, a Mr. S. of Missouri and Mr. M. of 
Boston. Of the four of us, three are millionaires. 
G. is a great cattleman of California and Arizona ; 
he is going down to Brazil to look the land over 
with the thought of investment. I am interested 
and amused to learn that the wealthy Bostonian be- 
gan his career by cutting marsh hay in New Jer- 
sey for 25 cents a day, with mosquitoes thrown in. 
Mr. S., the banker, began as a grocer's clerk in Mis- 
souri at $100 a year, and G. as a ranch hand at $25 
per month. Now G. owns his private yacht in Cali- 
fornia. These men saved their money and worked 
hard; they are typical Americans. Now they have 
more money, perhaps, than is good for them, but 
they are splendid, interesting men for all that. The 
background of success is work. 

"Afternoon: I had a nap, as usual, after lunch. 
It is a good habit and the American people would 
be saner and live longer if they would adopt it. 
We played that deck game, shuffleboard. It is a 
fine game. I cannot forget that in my white suit is 
tucked away a note from my dear wife, which she 
forbids my reading until the weather is hot enough 
for me to wear the suit. I have the clothes hung 
out now where I can see them, and I feel lovingly 
of the thin little letter in the coat pocket, but I don't 



18 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

read it yet. What a few clays since I left home and 
yet how long it seems, and how far away I feel ! 

"Da Silva, my Brazilian friend, helps me to read 
Spanish. I have a book that absolutely teaches the 
language in one lesson, or is it three? 

"Jan. 25: A perfect day, lovely and warm. So 
soon do we leave the latitudes of snows, frosts, 
chilblains and coal fires. This morning the First 
Officer came down all in white — a signal to the rest 
of us — and I was glad and made haste to don my 
white suit — the one holding the precious letter. That 
letter was about the finest bit of literature that I 
have ever read. My day is passed like this : a walk 
on deck at sunrise ; then work on a revision of Sheep 
Farming in America (somehow it does me good to 
think of bleating flocks on green hillsides) ; break- 
fast ; afterward games or work, or simply loafing in 
my steamer chair and talking with people. The 
time passes swiftly. My old Brazilian friend comes 
often to talk with me. Capt. Byrnes is a fine study 
— a very serious man with a broad face that he can 
set smiling and go away^ and leave it on duty. It is 
amusing, for he is supposed to be a ladies' man and 
to be gay at table. I see him smiling and pretend- 
ing to take interest in what is going on around him, 
when I know full well that he is really thinking of 
the port engine that is not acting right, or of the 
chart, or of the firemen who seem an obstreperous 
lot, mostly Spaniards from various ports in South 
America. 

"On the forward deck we now have arranged a 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 19 

canvas swimming tank and each afternoon we go 
out and swim. It is really curious ; the motion of 
the ship sends the water surging from one end of 
the tank to the other; you have only to keep afloat 
and you will get all the swimming you want." 

We crossed the Tropic of Cancer on Jan. 25. The 
weather was lovely — not too warm, not stormy ; long 
swells lifted the ship, and there' was a gentle breeze. 
It seemed to be almost a deserted ocean. We were 
yet within wireless touch with the United States. 
Strolling aft to where the second and third-cabin 
passengers hold sway, I was amazed to see evidently 
a sure-enough cowboy from the West, and some 
other western boys. They proved to be three lads 
from the Montana Agricultural College, and one 
sure-enough cowpuncher from Wyoming, all bound 
for Argentina, land of promise. They were fine 
boys, full of quiet fun, too, and of good, sound 
muscle. They had a working knowledge of soils 
and hoped to get positions under the Argentine 
Government. They had all of them herded cattle, 
ridden bucking bronchos and slept many a night 
out under the stars, but they had never ridden the 
waves before nor been out from under the American 
flag. 

There was a young Englishman too, a mining 
engineer, back in the second cabin; an intelligent 
fellow who worked all the way down on a book he 
was writing. Also there was an old Padre from 
Lima, Peru, on his way home from a journey around 
the world. I was aghast when the college boys con- 



20 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

fessed to me how little cash they had brought with 
them. It was just like boys, trusting to luck to 
bring them through. We promptly organized a 
Spanish language class; the old Padre would read 
to us and correct our pronunciation. Thus like 
children we whiled away many hours, imagining 
that we were very industrious and accomplishing 
much that would be helpful to us later. 

Our Spanish lesson book proved to be a curiosity. 
It contained a story of "tres viajantes" — three 
travelers, who found a treasure in the road — -"tres 
viajantes hallaron un tesoro en el camino." Then 
these travelers sent one of their number to buy 
something to eat ("comprar algo por comer") and 
he decided sagely to poison ("envenenar") the 
meat so that he could enjoy the " tesoro" all by his 
"solo." The book has endless questions and varia- 
tions, which we ask one another — "who were on the 
road?" "The three travelers." "What found 
they?" "One treasure." "Where found they this 
treasure!" "In the road" ("en el camino"), and 
so on endlessly. I am amused and shocked to re- 
member that all the Spanish I have acquired thus 
far relates to poisoning meat and finding treasures, 
but the word "camino" will be useful, and so will 
1 ' carne ! " 

Flocks of little flying fish enlivened the waters 
in these latitudes. Men said they did not really fly 
but jumped and soared. I could not agree; I am 
sure that they keep in the air too long to be simply 
soaring; they must fly some. They tell that it is 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 21 

the sharks, or other large fish in the sea, that 
startle them into action and make them leave the 
sea for the air for a time. 

Games began, all sorts of games, to make merri- 
ment for the passengers and to make the voyage 
pass swiftly. One day we had rifle shooting, and I 
was amazed to be adjudged the champion of the 
ship. I Jiad not used a rifle for more than twenty 
years — not since my ranching days in fact, but like 
swimming the art seems to hang to one. 

At night the decks were lighted and the young 
folks danced. Our little group of people seemed al- 
most like a family party, after a time, though as 
usual they divided somewhat into cliques and there 
were some heartburnings, as there always are on 
shipboard. The saddest man of us all seemed to be 
a Count Somebody from southern Europe, a spoiled 
boy who had had too much money and done too many 
things, so that life held no novelty for him. He 
mourned that he had left his valet behind and feared 
lest he should get acquainted with the wrong people 
on board ! Love-making went on ; sometimes be- 
tween young people who had never seen one another 
before, and sometimes, thank God, between husband 
and wife, who had time now to be much to each 
other. 

Up on the upper deck was the tiny cabin of the 
wireless operator; he was a mere boy, as delicate 
and lovely as a girl, but he knew his work well and 
it was a keen pleasure to walk with him and talk 
with him. Boy-like, he resented the petting by the 



22 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

women, and their insistence that he take better care 
of himself. There is something about the work of 
the wireless operator that is very trying on the 
nerves. 

So the life went on, as in a dream. When the 
nights were close and hot I would take my army 
blanket and sleep deliciously on deck, and some- 
times other young men would join me. One old 
Brazilian traveler told me that always on the Ama- 
zon people slept on deck, so warm and sultry were 
the nights. Flying fish increased until they were 
no longer a novelty ; one of them flew onto our deck, 
at least twenty-five feet high. We came into the 
region of showers and they were very frequent, 
sometimes fine and misty, sometimes very hard in- 
deed. We were nearing the Equator. What a ship- 
less ocean it was ! We would be days out of sight 
of anything but sea and sky and water. Day by day 
with the old Padre and the Montana boys the Span- 
ish lessons progressed ; we had interminable dia- 
logues that, translated meant, "is the book on the 
chair?" "No, the book is under the table." "Did 
one man go out?" "One man went out." "Did 
he poison the meat?" "Who poisoned the meat?" 
and so on, until we were weary. I can not now re- 
member that we learned one word that was after- 
wards useful to us in South America, but we, poor 
deluded innocents, trusting to the wisdom of books, 
supposed we were bravely doing our duties ! If I 
had time I would like to make a lesson book for 
beginners in Spanish. It would contain such simple 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING '23 

but helpful phrases as, "Where is the hotel?" 
"Where is the post office?" "When will dinner be 
ready?" "At what time does the train leave for 
Rosario?" I would omit the poisoning of meat. 

CROSSING THE EQUATOR. 

There is always a great time when the ship 
crosses "the line," as they call the Equator, and 
all who have not before crossed it must pay tribute 
to Father Neptune. The ship's stewards worked 
hard getting ready for this ; there was a great tank 
rigged on the after deck and filled about four feet 
deep with salt water. We were ordered to report 
at nine and most of us appeared in our pajamas. 
There were the Devil, in fine guise, old Father Nep- 
tune, in correct beard and costume, and a lot -of 
other characters, among them a gorilla, admirably 
imitated. These English lads are certainly bright 
and painstaking. First there was a parade of the 
characters, then the bugle called us all aft to the 
tank, where Neptune had his throne. The women 
were called first, one by one, and Father Neptune 
received them very graciously, putting a few cour- 
teous questions to them, then turning them over to 
the doctor, who proceeded to take their tempera- 
tures. His thermometer was made of one of the 
glass boiler tubes, and was open at each end and 
filled with salt water. As the woman took it in her 
mouth it was raised and the water went where it 
would do the most good ! One bright lady managed 
to stop the end of the tube with her tongue, and 



24 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

tlien to blow hard and deliver the sea water in the 
doctor's face. After the temperature was thus 
taken each was given a tonic from a huge bottle, 
then the faces were lathered with a huge brush and 
carefully shaved with a wooden razor about two 
feet long, and then the victims were discharged. 

We men went through a similar proceeding, only 
we were told to be seated on the edge of the tank, 
and after we were shaved we were suddenly cap- 
sized backward into the tank, a pleasant enough 
finish for one who could swim. Unluckily some one 
went in on top of me, so that I was down at the 
bottom of the tank quite a long time, but I did not 
swallow any water, and came out all right. Some 
of the men resisted and one was so fearfully strong 
that it took all of the stewards to put him in ; when 
they did get him over they all piled in on top of him, 
then some one turned a hose with a two-inch stream 
of water on the struggling, screaming mob, and, 
afterward turned it on a dense mass of Italian third- 
class passengers who were watching the play. I do 
not suppose that the water hurt them any. After- 
ward we were given certificates that we had been 
presented at the court of King Neptune. 

It was characteristic of the good ship Verdi and 
her men that something was doing nearly all the 
time, some entertainment for all of us except the 
second and third-class people, and even they were 
allowed shuffleboard sets. So many Americans go 
to Argentina by way of England (the fare being the 
same either way) that no doubt the shipowners 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 25 

make it their policy to make the direct voyage down 
as pleasant as possible. Indeed I can see no use 
in going by Europe; it takes longer and about the 
only advantage is that one finds bigger boats and 
more people on them, but one has also to deliver up 
double sets of tips to stewards, so it costs more in 
time and money, and one could hardly have more 
fun than we had on the Verdi. " 

LAND IN SIGHT. 

On the tenth day we sighted cape St. Roque, in 
Brazil, the first land we had seen. The cape lay 
low down on the horizon and was dimly seen. Cu- 
riously enough it did not awaken in us the least 
emotion and only so much interest as would lead us 
to ascertain whether the ship was really on the 
course that the chart indicated. Why were we not 
interested? I have puzzled over this. On voyages 
to England one is thrilled and excited at the sight 
of land. It must be that it was because at cape St. 
Roque we knew that there was " nothing doing" 
there for us. Then the heat, the humidity, the feel- 
ing that were we to land at the place we would find 
a tropical jungle, prevented our imaginations draw- 
ing any pleasing picture of St. Roque; we were 
glad lazily to steam onward. We made about 290 
to 300 miles a day. One can very easily run as 
fast as that, for a short time. I used to try it, run- 
ning along the deck toward the stern and keeping 
abreast of a wave, or some object dropped over- 
board. And yet, slow as it seems, the boat arrives 



26 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

somewhere. Evidently there is something in keep- 
ing steadily at a task. 

When at the Equator it had become "good and 
hot," I discovered a little nook out forward, where, 
under shelter, was a great chest full of rockets and 
other fireworks. No one walked there and I used 
to take my mattress there and an army blanket and 
pillow and sleep. There was always a breeze, some- 
times a strong one, and sleeping there was inde- 
scribably delicious. When I would awaken I would 
see the bright and glorious stars, among them the 
beautiful and mysterious southern cross, which 
hangs over the south pole much as our north star 
hangs over the north. Why should the heavens be 
different under the tropics? Be sure that they are 
different, by night and by day. Have you ever 
heard of a liquid moon? Well, the new moon used 
to glow, the dark part of it, with soft, liquid light, 
and the crescent of it very, very brilliant and the 
shining path of it across the sea was beautiful in- 
deed. Near me the bells struck the hours and for- 
ward in the crowsnest on the mast the watch called 
out his "all's well" at intervals; but nothing dis- 
turbed me; I was happy whether awake or asleep. 
My one lack was the company of dear ones from 
home. 

LANDING AT BAHIA. 

On the morning of Feb. 3, we were going into 
the bay of Bahia Todos Santos. To our left were 
white sandhills, with some touches of greenness. 
The air was hot in the sun, delicious in the shade, 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 



27 




28 



IN FOREIGN FIELDS 



As we approached Bahia we saw an enchanting 
view — a high ridge of land back a little way from 
the beach, and fields or pastures on the slopes, pos- 
sibly cane fields, with masses of palms and other 
trees. Fine houses were on the heights, and in a red 
hot-looking huddle by the water, Bahia. There was 
a fine breeze with very gay waves. Past us flew 
little sailing crafts, going out after fish (whales men 
assured me), the dark-skinned boatmen standing 
on the gunwales and leaning far out to windward 
to keep their little craft from capsizing. Amazing 
boatmen they appeared to me, but then the water 
was warm. 

From my journal: "The green of palms and 
trees so very, very green, the tiled roofs so red, 
the walls so white and yellow, the water so very 
blue — a great combination of colors. What a lot 
of church towers — more than I had ever seen be- 
fore. They say that they mark many periods of 
deep despair, times when yellow fever ravaged and 
men vowed to give a church if they lived, or one 
was given as a memorial if they died. Those were 
the days when prayers were thought better than 
sanitation. Now they say yellow fever does not 
come because they have cleaned up the place and 
understand the mosquito. and its tricks." 

Our Brazilian passengers were as happy as chil- 
dren at the sight of familiar scenes. It is easy to un- 
derstand and how, after that wealth of warmth and 
color, our shores must seem cheerless to them. Fine 
fellows, our Brazilian passengers — much the most 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 29 

courteous and well-bred of any of us, I regret to 
say. 

There are no piers or docks at Bahia; the place 
is only about 400 years old, but docks are building. 
We anchored a mile or more from shore and im- 
mediately there swarmed around us boatmen of all 
sorts, clamoring to sell us things, or to take us 
ashore. Through kind old Da Silva we bargained 
to be taken ashore in a boat manned by two boat- 
men, and soon we set off. There were right good 
swells on, and a stiff wind blew ; the boatmen pulled 
and pulled, as best they could, and that was quite 
well, it seemed to me, but they made small head- 
way, and the shore a mile away. Then we took 
down an awning that sheltered us from the sun and 
also caught too much wind; after this we got along 
better and finally came to land. I had been told 
the place was very dirty; I was therefore agree- 
ably astonished to find the streets cleaner than any 
that I had ever seen in North America. The clean- 
ing up of Bahia is comparatively recent. The streets 
were narrow; the stone buildings very old; little 
mules looking underfed toiled with carts laden with 
hides and other merchandise to the docks; busi- 
ness men walked about with umbrellas raised as a 
protection from the sun. They were small men, 
these Bahians, as though the climate had been a 
little too much for them, though possibly lack of 
oats in their diet had something to do with that. 
They were intelligent-looking little brown people 
mostly Portuguese or of that descent. Naturally 



30 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

negroes abounded, many of them well saturated with 
repose. 

Here I had taste of the peculiar quality of the 
tropics and its powerful sun. While we were in 
the shade, or on the shady side of streets, we did 
not feel the heat to be at all oppressive, but when 
we walked or climbed a hill a little way on the 
sunny side of the street, unprovided with umbrellas, 
a curious feeling came over us ; there was something 
else happening to us than mere warmth; it op- 
pressed and almost frightened us. It was no doubt 
the influence of the actinic rays of the sun that are 
more powerful here than in northern climes. 

It is curious how men take with them wherever 
they go their habits and customs. The Portuguese 
had built their homes much as they would have built 
them in Portugal, which has a mild and even cool 
climate, with no especial protection from the sun. 
There is a high ridge or plateau here, and the town 
is built on two levels perhaps 300 feet apart. The 
bank that separates the levels is a mass of bananas, 
bamboos and palms, as lovely as can well be im- 
agined. There is a trolley system, as near to falling 
apart as can be and run. We rode through the 
narrow streets, seeing into the shops and homes, 
and stopping now and then to let some mule pass 
where the street was only wide enough for a mule 
or a tiny trolley car. 

At one such stop our car windows were just op- 
posite and near to the windows of a dwelling, and a 
young mother held her two-year baby up to see the 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 31 

sights. It was a very pretty baby, dressed in a 
sweet smile. "Oil, how I would like a picture of 
that child!" exclaimed one of our party. "Well," 
I replied, "why do you not make it?" 

"Why, the mother would not like it; it is not 
dressed," said the would-be photographer. "She 
will be honored and pleased," I assured him. I was 
right. When the camera was leveled on the child 
the fond mother lifted it completely into view and 
stood it on the stone window sill in all its babyish 
charms. Evidently clothing for children is one ex- 
pense that these people escape. 

We went then to some very curious markets and 
wondered at the new fruits and vegetables ; then to 
a great tower in which is an elevator that reaches 
from the lower level to the upper one. The fare 
in the elevator is the same as on a trolley car, but 
few persons except negroes climb the street that 
leads from one level to the other. The upper town 
was immaculately clean and pretty in places. 

Bahia has about 375,000 people. It is the chief 
city of the state of Bahia, a large state, nearly four 
times as large as our state of Ohio. Judging from 
external signs it is not at present very thickly set- 
tled nor very productive. The population is not 
quite one-half that of Ohio and the volume of trade 
of less importance, probably, than that of the one 
town of Dayton in Ohio. Why not? Well, there 
are several reasons, no doubt. The climate is warm, 
and there is not the need of stern endeavor that 
there is in the United States. As we have seen, 



32 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

clothes are worn more as evidence of conformity than 
for the comfort they give. Then I can imagine that 
it would be difficult to train men to regular and 
strenuous labor such as has built Ohio, when ba- 
nana bunches hang ripening over every hut and 
bungalow. 

The interior is reached by railways; there is 
rain in plenty; there is fertility next to the coast; 
it is dry in the interior. There are mountain 
ranges and forests. I longed to explore the inte- 
rior and long yet to do it. Sugar, cotton and hides 
I take it are the chief articles of export, and from 
Bahia comes orr fine navel seedless orange. 

We found the United States Consul up on the 
heights, and he escorted us to some lovely parks and 
residence streets. Speaking of the climate, he had 
been there a year and this was the hottest clay that 
he remembered. It was merely a July day for 
Ohio, all but the penetrating heat of the sun's direct 
rays. I had never before felt that the true tropics 
would support fine civilization, and people of our 
kind. I changed my mind here, as I was profoundly 
impressed that if only people knew how to live, how 
to banish the mosquito with the consequent malaria 
and yellow fever, they could live in comfort and hap- 
piness in such a climate as that of Bahia; but they 
would assuredly need men of darker skin than their 
own to do much of the manual labor in the sun. 
The pigment of the Indian and the Negro was given 
as a protection from the sun's actinic rays; we, 
poor unfortunates, children of the cold North, are 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 33 

without dark skins, so we suffer most when trans- 
planted too near the equator. 

I quote again from my note book : "I took a long 
trolley ride and saw many pretty homes and gard- 
ens ; flowers, very vivid in their colors ; waste places 
carpeted densely with Bermuda grass; goats and 
children playing on the commons ; banks of bananas 
almost as high as trees ; groves of oranges big and 
green and many, many happy, well-looking children. 
It was not a hot day in the shade — not in the least 
what one would imagine the tropics to be like. The 
sehors wore black, thin coats and straw hats, no 
sun helmets nor anything suggesting African or 
Indian pictures. It was all delicious — the air, in 
the evening and the sights. Of course there was 
enough to criticise, if one wished to do that, but 
Bahia has had so many sorrows from yellow fever 
in the past that it should be forgiven much. Now 
is no doubt the dawn of a new era." 

We passed a pretty house with a big European 
lawn, only so much greener a lawn than I ever saw 
in Europe, and on it some German people playing 
lawn tennis in the evening and happy, healthy-look- 
ing children playing about. The thought came: 
"Why, here one could have a farm, with meadows, 
pastures, corn, sugar, bananas and many things." 
After all it would be a poor place for hay-making, 
for it rains every day, they say, and why would one 
want any hay? I saw donkeys laden with very long 
green grass, Guinea grass, I imagine. I fear the 
country is settled up with the wrong kind of people 



34 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

for progress ; there is a great deal of African blood. 
Bahia once was a center of a great slave trade. 

We took on at Bahia, great green-colored 
oranges that are said never to turn yellow, (deli- 
cious they are, too), and mangoes. A mango is a 
cross between a peach and a pomegranate, as big 
as a duck's egg, with a flavor like a peach tinged 
with turpentine. One eats them best in a bath tub, 
undressed, but they are very delicious, once you get 
used to them. 

We must remember that the Verdi sailed at 6 
o'clock. Three of us missed our boat and had to 
bargain with a swarthy pirate to take us out, which 
he did for double price ; it was an anxious moment 
or two, as we wondered whether we would reach the 
Verdi in time, but we did ; all was well and we were 
happy. We had had an adventure ; we had achieved 
something, and so we were happy. Then we bore 
away to Rio Janeiro. 

Next day we were under the vertical sun. We 
passed Brazilian coasting steamers, not very big 
or comfortable looking, and we wondered what life 
as the Brazilians live it was like. We felt very 
sure, now, that we were really in South America, 
and it seemed to a North American a far stranger 
land than Europe. 

IMPRESSIONS OF RIO DE JANEIRO. 

On Feb. 6, we came into the harbor of Rio de 
Janeiro or the "River of January." It was 2 
o'clock in the morning, and some of the girls sat up 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 35 

till that time, to see the sight. I did not sit up. It 
takes a lot of enthusiasm, or something, to make a 
man of fifty sit up so late as that. I got up, how- 
ever, as we came through the gateway to the harbor, 
and looked out at the marvelous scene. High, very, 
very steep mountains rose on either side, very bril- 
liant stars shone overhead and -soon as we neared 
the city, stealing in at half -speed, the city lay before 
us with all its electric lights glittering down next the 
bay. There is a boulevard down by the waterside 
twenty miles long, in a horseshoe curve along the 
shore, and all the way it is brilliantly lighted by 
electricity. It was like fairyland as we came in 
that morning and when daylight came it was just 
as lovely, for the shores had rows of stately royal 
palms, the mountains were incredibly deep-green, 
the houses of the city white and yellow in plaster, 
the roofs always of red tiles, and near at hand little 
islands covered with ornamental buildings, as though 
dropped down from some world's fair. I think one 
of the fine buildings on an island was a palace for 
the late Emperor, one of his places. What the oth- 
ers were does not now matter; all were built to 
please the eye and to finish the landscape. A fort 
on one island had been perforated a few weeks before 
by the mutinous crews of the fleet, when the navy 
had gone into revolution. 

Many important looking men came aboard, 
finely arrayed in uniform, often of white ; then 
swarms of laborers to unload part of our cargo. 
As at Bahia, there were no docks; we unloaded on 



36 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

lighters, which is the way seamen prefer, but pas- 
sengers do not. We went dancing ashore over the 
blue waves in a steam launch and passing on the 
way ferry boats laden with gay people bound for 
other enchanted shores. We found a bright Italian 
boy who had lived in Connecticut and engaged him 
for a guide. For the day he charged us $3, which 
was cheaper than to ramble aimlessly about. I will 
not tell much about Rio because there is so much 
to tell. Rio de Janeiro, in its setting, is the most 
marvelously beautiful city in the world. These 
South Americans place beauty and harmony of plan 
first in their schemes of civic improvement. May- 
be it is because they are not a manufacturing peo- 
ple,, but I could not but consider how differently it 
would have all looked had it been in North America. 
Think that in all that twenty miles of boulevard 
surrounding the harbor there was not one junk shop 
or fertilizer factory, nor hideous manufacturing 
plant of any sort. These things are put back out 
of sight, hemmed in behind high white walls, and all 
the loveliness of the bay enhanced by boulevards, 
rows of palms, and sightly white stuccoed buildings. 

The main part of the city is interesting but not 
fine ; it has narrow clean streets that are ' almost 
horseless. In them go about fine, fat little mules, 
with brown stripes across their shoulders. They 
are not the lean mules of Bahia, so I guess that 
even mules do not relish work too near to the equa- 
tor. There were fine automobiles, chiefly of Euro- 
pean make, in the streets, and many elegantly 






TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 37 

dressed people. There has been cut straight through 
the city a fine avenue, lined with shops, hotels, 
restaurants and theaters. There must have been 
destroyed thousands of old buildings in order to 
give room for this fine avenue, now the pride of the 
city. 

The town climbs up on the hillsides, in fact up 
the very mountains, for it is a large city. Getting 
a little way from the crowded center, we saw gar- 
dens and trees and a few flowers of the gayest colors ; 
but I was told that here roses do not thrive, nor 
many of the common, plain little loved flowers of 
the temperate climes. We went by trolley to the 
wonderful botanic garden, then by trolley up into 
the mountains. The whole ride was full of marvels 
for us. The sides of the hills were covered with 
rather scrubby but interesting trees; the gardens 
were full of bananas and other interesting growths 
that seemed as though they were in a greenhouse; 
the white cottages and bungalows looked cool and 
comfortable, perched often on the hillsides far above 
the narrow mountain valley up which we rode. We 
caught glimpses of blue harbor and the. guarding 
mountains, steep and green, and the city was like 
fairyland in its mingled white and greenery. 

It puzzles a North American to know what so 
many inhabitants of Rio do for a living. One sees 
few factories. No doubt many go there to live who 
own plantations and farms in the interior and no 
doubt the climate is so fine that the poor live more 
easily than they would in New York. There is 



38 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

doubtless much poverty in Rio, as there is in every 
city in the tropics for that matter. The easier the 
conditions the more poverty seems always to be the 
rule. 

At 1,300 feet up in a little mountain valley our 
trolley line ended and I walked a distance along 
what seemed a country road. Bamboos as thick 
as one's leg arched high over our heads — a lovely 
screen from the too ardent sun. Neatly kept 
places were on either side, suburban in their nature, 
yet having gardens and even some coffee trees. The 
road was splendidly kept. A brown-skinned native 
came down the road with an ox and cart — a big ox 
with a soft gray coat and a great hump on his 
back. He was a zebu, which is an East India type 
of cattle that thrives in Brazil. He was gentle and 
the man led him with a small cord about his neck, 
but he was willful and wayward and his driver 
maintained a running fire of reproaches as he trotted 
at the side of the great, mellow beast. The cart was 
laden with green forage, of some coarse but nutri- 
tious grass, going down to the city. I aired my 
Spanish on the Portuguese driver, and as the lan- 
guages are similar he understood me and smilingly 
replied to my questions. "Yes, he is a good ox and 
easy to keep fat. He is well behaved only he is 
of a playful spirit. It is a very fine day, but the 
country needs rain." Thus did two farmers meet, 
the one from the North, the other of the South, 
compare notes, and find much thought in common, 
for even Ohio often needs rain. 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 39 

It was February, which is to them what August 
is to us, and the clay was too warm for comfort, if 
one walked fast, yet it was deliciously cool at the 
higher altitude. In July, which is mid-winter with 
them, I was in Eio again and the weather was ideal ; 
one needed a warm coat but no fire; in fact, I pre- 
sume there is no such thing as a fire for warming 
mankind in Rio. The cooking is done almost alto- 
gether by use of charcoal. Steadily the population 
grows. Now that they have discovered the relation 
of, the mosquito to disease, it is a healthy city, and 
is destined perhaps to be the third city of impor- 
tance in the New World, New York and Buenos 
Aires only surpassing it. 

From my note book I quote : 

''I dropped into the cathedral for a few minutes ; 
it was rather bare and gaudy. The city is the clean- 
est and brightest that I have ever seen, far exceed- 
ing Paris, and the people are well dressed and in- 
telligent looking. Prices in the shop windows seem 
enormous; a man's hat 6,000 to 10,000 reis, an apple 
100 reis. To go up the trolley ride cost me, for our 
party of three, 5,000 reis, but it was worth it. My 
simple meal in a restaurant cost me 2,500 reis. It 
is all terrifying until one learns that it takes about 
1,000 reis to equal 35 cents of United States money." 

We left at Rio a negro from Seattle, a big, black 
and intelligent man who hoped to win a home and 
a banana-shaded backyard in Rio, meaning to take 
his family a little later. I have often wondered what 
happened to him. He spoke not one word of the 



40 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

Portuguese language. It is not a good place to 
get stranded. I was told of an American who found 
himself penniless in Eio. He was a man of educa- 
tion and used to good living. One night, having no 
other bed and the night being fine, he lay down to 
sleep in the park. In the morning some one had 
taken his shoes. 

When we returned to the ship I found my Mon- 
tana college boys, all animation and joy. Some of 
us had managed to interest the Brazilian Minister 
of Agriculture in them and, presto! they were all 
hired to go to various experiment stations, at what 
it seemed to us then, very good wages. They were 
all dressed to go ashore and, with their trunks on 
deck, only waiting to tell us the good news and to 
say "good bye." Fine, brave, intelligent, manly 
boys they were. I wonder whether Brazil knew 
what a precious treasure it was absorbing into its 
body politic. Let not this adventure lead any boys 
who may happen to read it to try to "go and do 
likewise." A man should take to a foreign land a 
knowledge of its language, if possible, and money 
enough to keep him for three months and then take 
him home. It was almost miraculous that these lads 
did not get stranded in South America, and light- 
ning does not often strike twice in the same place. 

I quote again from my note book: 

"The Brazilians have as bright minds as any 
on shipboard, and have been more kindly, courteous 
and lovable than any others. How often our im- 
pressions are wrong. Before coming here I held 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 



41 




INDIAN CORN IN THE INTERIOR OF BRAZIL. 



42 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

Brazil and Brazilians in light esteem. These folk 
can show us some things. Tlieir love of order and 
beauty is wonderful. Education is said to be uni- 
versal and school attendance compulsory. We are 
coasting below Eio and passing high, bold rocky 
islets, wooded to their crests and uninhabited. What 
a place to come and play pirate, or hermit, as one's 
fancy led. I should want no better fun, and if 
piracy got a bit slow there would be the bananas 
overhanging the hut. 

THE PORT OF SANTOS. 

"Immensely pleased and interested, we bore 
away southwestwarcl to the port of Santos, which 
we found a hot mountain-girt hole with marshy 
surroundings, a city full of ships, docks, ware- 
houses and little else to interest. No one lives 
at Santos, I assume, if he can live elsewhere; it is 
the great coffee port of Brazil, the greatest in the 
world, and an outlet for the State of Sao Paulo, 
(Saint Paul)." 

A little party of us decided to occupy the time 
while the steamer was discharging cargo by going 
into the interior a little way, to the city of Sao 
Paulo. There was little to see at Santos, which 
is a city of typical one-story Spanish houses, flush 
with the sidewalks of the narrow, roughly paved 
streets — a city evidently given over to stern matters 
of business and not to pleasure. In the past, fevers 
have devastated this town, but it may some day be 
beautiful, although always hot in summer. 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 43 

We found the railway station a fine, large, mod- 
ern one, much in the English style. Our train stood 
made up, the cars spick-and-span, light, airy and 
pretty but not so large or heavy as ours, with seats 
arranged as in our cars. Seeing one car half empty 
and the passengers within appearing "first-class," 
we essayed to enter, but were politely restrained 
by an official, because we had no season tickets. It 
seems that each seat in this car is rented for the 
season by some person living up at Sao Paulo. Thus 
the seat-owner is always sure of his seat, even if 
he arrives at the last moment. We found seats, 
however, in the next car, and the train moved off. 
I quote from my note book : 

"The car was filled with the most daintily 
dressed people I have ever seen on a railway jour- 
ney ; many of the young men were in spotless white, 
their hair and mustaches very black and the 
mustaches beautifully curled. Some of the men 
were a bit pale, as though they carefully avoided the 
sun, though they looked vigorous enough. The 
young women were also quite generally dressed in 
white, and I must say they were handsome, always 
with black hair, always with fine teeth, bright eyes 
and enough color in their cheeks. It was pleasant 
to observe their gentle manners and courtesy." 

ON THE WAY TO SAO PAULO. 

Our way led first out through marshy land and 
then by great fields of bananas, mostly of a dwarf- 
growing variety, not more than six feet high; then 



44 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

we entered a cove in the mountains and headed for 
the heights. But how would we surmount those 
steep, green ramparts, their crests 3,000 feet above 
us — and so near us? We stopped at the foot of the 
mountain and our train was divided; a small but clean 
and shining locomotive took three of our cars and 
pushed us forward; we were then attached to one 
strand of an endless cable; it moved and we began 
our climb of 3,000 feet to the plateau of Sao Paulo. 
We moved up easily, our tiny engine accompanying 
us but not pushing much. Presently down on the 
parallel track came three laden freight cars, at- 
tached to the other strand of our cable. Evidently 
we were going up as coffee came down, and coffee 
was chiefly the power that moved us. There are 
power houses at the upper end of each cable loop 
of course, and I assume that we would have been 
drawn up even had there been no cars to come down, 
but, as a matter of fact, cars always balanced us 
on each stage of the climb. There were several, 
perhaps ten, stages of the journey, each one having 
its own cable and thus, step by step, we climbed. 
Our locomotive was meant to shove us across the 
level track that joined the inclines, when we had let 
go of one cable and were reaching for another. 

This is one of the finest bits of railway in the 
world. It is maintained in admirable condition. 
There were places where the mountain-side above 
us was laid in solid masonry and cement for acres 
and acres, to prevent landslides no doubt. The en- 
tire system is in duplicate, so if aught goes wrong 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 45 

with one the other is in readiness. The way up af- 
forded us one constant succession of marvelous 
views of mountainside, canyon and far distant 
vistas. The mountains were densely wooded, but 
I was astonished to see that there were not many 
large trees, and usually they were gnarled and 
crooked. Some of them were aflame with big pink 
and red blossoms. I longed to stop and examine 
these closely. 

THE PLATEAU OF SAO PAULO. 

We emerged at the summit onto a rolling table- 
land, about 3,000 feet above the sea, and here the 
waters flow westward and do not come down to the 
sea before they join the Rio Parana, which flows 
into the Rio de la Plata and comes down by Buenos 
Aires. There is always a feeling of excited ex- 
pectation as one emerges from a canyon on to a 
mountaintop ; and with this feeling there is another 
■ — relief. Here we saw before us only rolling coun- 
try, once heavily timbered. The timber has been cut 
away for making charcoal, and there are miles of 
grassland and brushy land, with no signs of fence 
or cultivation. At the huts of the railway laborers 
we saw gardens, looking well indeed, and one tiny 
field of perhaps six acres of maize had a rich, dark 
green appearance that reminded me of the best corn 
of Ohio. This is about the same distance below the 
equator as Cuba is above it; the altitude of 3,000 
feet makes the climate delightful. Why then is there 
not thick settlement and much cultivation along the 



46 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

railway? I was told later that the land is owned 
in large tracts and that settlement has not been en- 
couraged. To me it would seem an ideal place to 
plant a colony of northern farmers, with pastures, 
meadows, corn, dairies, pigs, oranges, lemons and 
apples — all the pleasant things that one can call to 
mind, they would all grow here. 

A ride of perhaps twenty miles over the plateau 
brought us in the dusk of the evening to the city 
of Sao Paulo, and a carriage deposited us at the 
"Hotel Sportsman" with nothing English about it 
but the name. It was a damp, plain and out-of-date 
old hotel, but the waiters brought us a dinner that 
would be hard to equal. I was amused when they 
brought at the close a great basket of fruit — the 
best grapes I have ever eaten — peaches, oranges, 
several fruits that I do not know, figs, and apples. 
I asked especially whence came the apples, and 
learned that they came from Australia. The rest 
of the fruit I think came from Brazil and most of it 
from the nearby environs of Sao Paulo. 

When we had eaten what fruit we desired, the 
waiter took to the manager what was left, the man- 
ager made a mental calculation of what sum to add 
to our bill, which was sufficiently large. I slept 
that night in a tiny closet of a room, for which 
next morning I paid in full, for room, the land it 
rested on and all. Since then new hotels have arisen 
in Sao Paulo and bedrooms are no doubt better, 
but commend me to that waiter and that cook at 
the Sportsman. 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 47 

THE CITY OF SAO PAULO. 

Very early in the morning I was astir, eager to 
see the sights. The architecture is interesting, all 
in stucco, like some world's fair taken root, with 
roofs all of red tiles, but what I recall with most in- 
terest and pleasure is the great ravine or narrow 
valley through the center of the town. A stone via- 
duct takes one over the ravine and one can stand on 
the bridge and look down on the valley perhaps 200 
feet below. You know well what you would see in a 
North American town, were you to gaze off into such 
a place in the midst of it; you would look down on 
piles of garbage, a waste of old barrels and tin cans, 
some coal piles, some shacks, a disorder of rotting 
weeds, a scene of neglect and despair. In Sao Paulo 
one sees instead a lovely garden, almost like 
a park, with figs, grapes, flowers, a tiny irrigaitng 
canal, neatly kept, some charming red tiled cottages, 
each apparently planned with thought of how it 
would look to the viewer from above. Just how 
this was accomplished, whether it is instinctive to 
the Brazilians to make everything possible beauti- 
ful, or whether municipal law steps in to direct, I 
do not know. Assuredly it is a striking lesson to 
us at home. 

I am aware that these Latin cities have certain 
advantages that we do not; their freedom from 
foundries, coal bins and large factories makes it 
easier to have a city beautiful, yet I think that the 
root of the difference lies in the nature of those 
people. They have the artistic sense more highly 



48 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

developed than we; they live for beauty more than 
we; they will not permit others to deface and make 
hideous places on which their eyes must rest, and we 
assert that a man has a right to do as he pleases 
with what is his own. We are too busy, or think 
we are, to take much interest in things that merely 
concern appearances. I wonder whether a Puritan 
training away back, or a Quaker influence, had 
something to do with our disregard for mere beauty. 
Well, I stood on the bridge and rejoiced that I 
was alive. One cannot feel that when he is look- 
ing down at an ash dump or a disfiguring mass of 
billboards. There was in our party a little woman, 
Mrs. Y., who had a lively appreciation developed in 
her, and just then she appeared. She had decided 
to take an early morning walk, and together we ex- 
claimed and enraptured and appreciated, and then 
went with good appetites to our breakfast. 

Now the South Americans have not the United 
States breakfast habit ; in fact, I know of no other 
nation that has. Our breakfast consisted of fruits, 
a roll with butter from Denmark, and that delicious 
coffee that the Brazilians keep at home. It was eaten 
in a charming palm-shaded patio, where little tables 
were set about anywhere that one might desire. Per- 
haps every one has had days when he was com- 
pletely happy. This was one of those days for me. 
Every muscle, every nerve and fiber of the body 
and all the little happiness cells of the mind were 
tingling with delight. One was grateful for being 
alive, and had a lively expectation of further good 






TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 49 

things about to occur. Confidentially, I think that 
Brazilian coffee had a little to do with this state, 
but chiefly it was the beauty of the scene, the glo- 
rious air and sun, the joy of being on dry land after 
so many days at sea. 

As soon as we had finished breakfast, a great 
automobile appeared with Senor Braga, one of our 
fellow-passengers who lived at Sao Paulo. Having 
reached home he was eager to show us its beauties. 
We had not much time, but he whirled us out to the 
suburbs and over superb streets and roads. We 
rode many miles. I do not know whether it is pret- 
tier than Pasadena,' California, or not; it is like 
that town in its way of putting bungalows in great 
gardens filled with palms and oranges and^all man- 
ner of flowers. The Brazilians build after the Por- 
tuguese manner, with gabled roofs of red titles on 
walls of white, or blue stucco, and they set the 
houses in beautiful gardens whenever they can do 
so, in contrast with Spanish cities that usually are 
built with one-storied, flat-roofed houses set flush 
with the sidewalk and having their little gardens 
in their courts or patios in the center of the houses. 

Sao Paulo, founded in 1533, is growing with 
amazing rapidity, increasing in twenty years from 
80,000 to 400,000. It is extending its suburbs far, 
following our custom. No doubt the advent of the 
American trolley car has much to do with this get- 
ting of the people to the suburbs — that and the ad- 
vent of the automobile. 

It was February, which would be the same as 



50 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

August with us, yet the day was not uncomfortably 
warm. I have an idea that the climate of this pla- 
teau is as fine as one could find anywhere, although 
they tell me it is cold enough for fires in winter, 
and Sehor Braga said he would prefer to live in 
Rio, despite the summer heats there, because he 
does not like cool weather. We went to his suburban 
home, a great comfortable, elegant house set in a 
big space full of trees and flowers. The senor 
wished most to have us see his garden, so we went 
therein and picked ripe strawberries, green lemons, 
green apples and a bewildering assortment of other 
fruits, the names of which I have forgotten. Then 
we motored rapidly to the railway station, took a 
train down to Santos and went to the Verdi. San- 
tos seemed a fiery furnace, after Sao Paulo, and 
some of the passengers were covered with ugly 
looking mosquito bites, having left their portholes 
open during the night, as, indeed, they must. 

The Verdi continued to discharge cargo for a 
few hours after we reached her, and during that 
time an Italian passenger steamer came into 
port, calling enroute to Buenos Aires. She had 
on board about 4,000 passengers, mainly of the 
third-class; she was black with masses of people 
eager for a glimpse of the new world to which they 
had come. This gave me an idea of the great 
world-movement, the transplantation of Latin peo- 
ple and Latin civilizations to the vacant spaces of 
South America. Senor Braga had told us that labor 
in Brazil was cheap, costing he said no more than 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 51 

half what it costs in the United States. Let no 
Yankee laborer go southbound expecting to work 
with his hands; the field is occupied by men with 
customs, ideals and standards unlike his own. I 
think, however, that there should be room near Sao 
Paulo on those cool highlands for dairy farms and 
that they ought to pay if carried on in the northern 
style. We did not see much of the agriculture of the 
region ; it lies farther inland, and in this state con- 
sists mostly of coffee-growing. We marveled great- 
ly at the enterprise and courage of the Brazilians 
when we learned that the state of Sao Paulo had 
borrowed in Europe so many millions of pounds that 
I dare not state the number — this in order to enable 
them to hold their surplus coffee and maintain the 
price by judicious marketing. This artificial boost- 
ing of coffee has given a great stimulus to the 
growth and development of the state and city, but 
the thought comes, "What will be the end of it all? 
Can the state forever pile coffee in warehouses 
and dictate the price that it shall bring?" 

That is about all that I saw of Brazil. It is, 
I am sure, a land of great opportunities and ad- 
vantages, laboring, however, often under the dis- 
advantages of too much warmth, too many insects 
and inferior labor. The Brazilians, however, have 
quite generally keen minds and enterprising dis- 
positions, and we will hear from Brazil; great 
things are due to happen in its development in 
the near future. Think how vast is its territory, 
nearly equaling that of the United States, count- 



52 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

ing Alaska, although it has nowhere the cool, tem- 
perate, man-breeding plains that make North 
America promise to continue its dominating course 
in the world's commercial progress. 

These things I learned of the opportunities of 
Brazil: that there are in the south vast plains that 
grow good grasses and good cattle ; that the cattle 
are often of inferior type, of much the same char- 
acter as the old Mexican and Texas cattle, al- 
though they are being considerably improved by 
use of sires from Argentina and recently from 
Texas. It is a land where the Hereford thrives, 
and I was told that there is room for thousands of 
good United States Hereford sires, but they must 
be born south of the tick line, which means that 
all of Brazil is a tick-infested region, where Texas 
fever must be reckoned with when cattle are new- 
ly introduced. Considerable of the zebu blood has 
been used, and the results of cross-breeding with 
these cattle, themselves native to the tropics, has 
been good. 

The Brazilian government, seeing the great de- 
velopment of Argentina, is ambitious to emulate 
it and is offering many inducements to men of 
capital to come and develop its rich and nearly 
virgin fields. Brazil is not the place for the Amer- 
ican farmer to go — the man, that is, of moderate 
means. Nor is it the place for the American la- 
borer; he must there compete with labor that 
is content with far a much smaller wage than is 
current in the United States. 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 53 

ARGENTINA. 

We slipped down the coast past the southern 
ports of Brazil, which are not deep enough for 
call by large steamers, towards the great river La 
Plata, and Argentina, the land of my destination. 
Nothing especial happened on our way down ex- 
cepting a magnificent blow, with very huge seas 
through which the good ship Verdi plunged with 
spectacular effects. We were by this time so sea- 
worthy that the motion of the ship did not affect 
us, and we enjoyed the stupendous waves, the 
clouds of spray, the wonder of the ship that drove 
ever straight on and on. 

It was the 13th of February when we came into 
yellow, muddy water, coining from the fresh-water 
rivers of the South American continent. We ap- 
proached a point of land, a low mountain stood up 
behind; we came in sight of an ancient stone-built 
city, Montevideo, in Uruguay. A great masonry 
breakwater makes a safe though shallow harbor 
there. We entered and landed. Montevideo is a 
pleasant city, bright, clean and enterprising, with 
no unusual picturesqueness, although it has some 
neat, pretty little plazas and a few greater parks 
of considerable beauty. This little republic is one 
of the leaders in thought and action in South 
America. We made but a short call and steamed 
away for Buenos Aires, the city of "good airs." As 
we coasted along the Uruguayan shores, we saw 
fields of yellow stubble, fairly thick set with wheat 
shocks. We were well within the river now; many 



54 In foreign fields 

crafts were in sight, and the interest increased 
every minute. All night we went slowly up the 
stream. When early morning dawned I was astir, 
full of wonder and of half-dread of what unknown 
things awaited us. 

ON THE EIO DE LA PLATA. 

Morning found us in the yellow Hood of Eio de 
La Plata, the "river of silver." It was so wide 
that one shore was barely visible and the other 
shore quite lost to view. One would at first hastily 
declare it was no river at all, but merely a bay. 
However, the fact that it had a strong current and 
brought enough sand to keep a number of govern- 
ment dredges busy all the time, shows it to be a 
river. It is 5 indeed, one of the marvelous rivers 
of the world, carrying, I should say, far more wa- 
ter than our Mississippi. Some 800 miles up, above 
the point of several important tributaries, I crossed 
it again and found it miles wide there, with a 
strong current. 

Ships lay at anchor, many of them, mostly 
tramp steamers. "We counted more than a hundred 
of them. Why were they idle? They were waiting 
their chance to get to docks to load, or unload, car- 
go. They had come bringing materials for build- 
ing railways, or machinery for the harvest fields, 
or any thing one can imagine that civilized and 
half-civilized people need, for there is, as yet, not 
much manufactured in South America. The ships 
were waiting to carry home cargoes of corn (maize), 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 55 

wheat, hides, quebracho wood (used for its tanning 
powers), or possibly they were some of them 
equipped to carry home frozen or chilled beef or 
mutton. Certainly many of them would carry home 
wool. The port of Buenos Aires is too small; the 
development of the interior country has proceeded 
too rapidly for the plans of the port authorities, 
hence the congestion. Passenger steamers can of 
course always get into their docks, but freight 
steamers must wait their turn. 

Steaming slowly along parallel with the shore 
we reached finally the entrance to the dredged canal, 
and turned towards the city, our pathway marked 
with buoys. Giant dredges creaked and complained 
as they ceaselessly scooped up sand from this 
channel, the sand brought by the river from its 
upper reaches. Some eight miles long is the dredged 
channel. One gets an idea of the difficulties in the 
way of making a great port at a place like Buenos 
Aires, where once in the shallow river ox-carts came 
far out to land passengers. As we glided slowly in, 
the city spread out before us, a vast city, putting a 
good front before us. Presently we landed, and a 
carriage took us through a really beautiful park 
that separates the city proper from the harbor, to 
the entrance of a very wonderful wide street, the 
Avenida de Mayo, an avenue lined with what ap- 
peared to be palaces of cut stone — really a street 
of handsome shops, fine hotels and restaurants. 
Then I was installed in my hotel and the South 
American vovage was over. 



56 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

BUENOS AIRES. 

Buenos Aires is a very large city with usually 
narrow streets and houses for the most part in 
the Spanish fashion, that is, coming flush on the 
sidewalk and having inside patios where there are 
flowers and often trees. The Avenida is new, the 
result of a decree of widening. Other streets are 
being widened in similar manner. The streets are 
difficult to get through rapidly, because of the nar- 
row sidewalks and the crowds of people on them. 
Pew hurry in South America. The newer archi- 
tecture is admirable, of the latest European de- 
sign. There are beautiful little plazas and parks 
and a wonderful great park at Palermo. Buenos 
Aires has a temperate climate, so that palms thrive 
in the formal parks. £The Canary Islands date palm 
makes a brave show. The eucalypts are here 
commonly seen in the larger parks, with pepper 
trees and most of the things seen in California. A 
feature of Buenos Aires worth imitating with us 
is that the city owns and cares for the shade trees, 
pruning and caring for them. The European syca- 
more or plane tree is much seen. The paving of 
the Avenida and some other streets is perfect, al- 
though when wet it is too slippery for horses ; the 
paving in the unimportant streets is rough. 

There is a lesson for us in the way these gor- 
geous palaces are built. I often watched the work, 
first came brick layers and hastily laid up very 
rough brick, making a very rude wall. This is only 
the skeleton : now comes the flesh that clothes it 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 57 

in beauty — Portland cement plaster, pnt on by 
Italian workmen. When tliey have finished with 
the originally rude, crude walls they are good imi- 
tations of the finest creations in cut stone — such 
things as we would not dare. attempt excepting per- 
haps in our best public buildings. One must look 
more than once to see that they are merely of plas- 
ter. Nor does the cement often peel off or give 
trouble. 

THE SPIRIT OF THE CAMP. 
Buenos Aires has little of a South American 
flavor, if one does not see the parks, and even they 
are nearly counterparts of what one sees in south- 
ern Europe; but one feature impresses, namely, 
after all the city is based on the fields, the "camps." 
As one walks along a fine street one sees a sign, 
perhaps "Bullrich & Co.," and a great entrance; 
peering in one sees an exhibition building filled with 
pens of sheep, with perhaps a few splendid horses 
and some cattle. These are kept to be seen and to 
be sold. As one examines the sheep one is struck 
with their fine quality. Lincolns or Bomneys, 
fresh from England's pastures, usually filled the 
pens. They are in the pink of condition, magnifi- 
cent creatures that cost at home perhaps from $500 
to $5,000 each. Then there are displays of all sorts 
of fascinating things for the "camp," as the coun- 
try here always is called ; fence posts of woods 
nearly as heavy and durable as iron ; fence ratchets 
better than any that I ever have seen at home; 
powerful gates; great wagons, and light American 



58 'IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

sulkies and carts, and even enormous house wagons 
in which one could live in comfort, be he where he 
might. 

These displays are quite apart from the ware- 
houses of the agricultural implement men. All of 
our leading manufacturers have here enormous 
warehouses and stocks of machines, while English 
manufacturers are not far behind us and, moreover, 
are crowding us hard. 

I landed Feb. 14. It was a hot day. It was 
easy to get in touch with the Minister of Agricul- 
ture and through him with the Division of Gana- 
cleria or live stock. With their aid I planned a 
campaign. It was necessary to go south, clear to 
the Straits of Magellan, where are many and great 
"estancias," as the ranches are called. Drs. Suarez 
and Paz helped me willingly and smilingly. I se- 
cured a letter of introduction from the Chilian min- 
ister to the governor of the territory of Magellanes 
on the Straits. It was hot in the north ; it would 
soon be cold in the south, so without going here 
afield, I again took ship headed for Punta Arenas. 

AGAIN SOUTHWAED BOUND. 

We embarked from the port of Montevideo on 
the Oriana, an English ship of the Pacific Line, 
running from Liverpool to the Brazilian ports, 
Montevideo and the west coast of South America. 
She was a big comfortable ship. On her decks were 
many large pens, each containing half a dozen 
splendid Romney rams, which had come from New 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 59 

Zealand to Montevideo and were now being re- 
shipped to Punta Arenas, a port on the Straits of 
Magellan. What good ones they were — thick, stur- 
dy, hardy-looking and woolly. I spent much time 
studying them. They had stood the voyage per- 
fectly, as it was all the way through a cold climate, 
and curiously enough they had once passed in sight 
of the island of Tierra del Fuego, to which they 
were now returning. There were many English- 
men on the ship, interesting and strange men that 
they are, and the time passed happily. One of the 
passengers was Alec. Robertson, a young Scot who 
had ridden a great deal in Patagonia. He told me 
of the difficulties, the short, thin grass, the cold 
winds, the need of twelve horses — six for his own 
riding and six for a guide. Another Englishman 
showed me, to my astonishment, a map of south- 
ern Patagonia, showing that it is nearly all di- 
vided into rectangular tracts, apportioned to sheep- 
ranchers or estancieros and fenced with good wire 
fences. I had expected here to find things pretty 
wild, about as nature made them, in fact, so this 
was quite a surprise. 

The hot weather disappeared soon after we left 
Montevideo; in a day or two I was wearing a fur- 
lined, coat on deck — the coat that I had so often re- 
viled, as it hung so warm-looking in my stateroom 
coming down by Brazil. The sun was far in the 
north, and it seemed natural to see it thus. We 
sighted no land until we reached the entrance to 
the straits. Early in the morning we came in; the 



60 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

shores were rather close, barren, treeless and show- 
ing yellow grass. However, on the slopes and here 
and there were a few buildings, a woolshed, maybe, 
or shearing shed, with corrals and house, all set 
down in some sheltered valley, secure from the 
prevailing hard winds. It reminded me of the 
rougher part of the range country cf Wyoming, but 
there was less grass than in Wyoming, and no 
trees. The shores of Tierra del Fuego were lower 
and yellow with grass, and in the distant southwest 
mountains glistened with eternal snow. We were 
in the heart of the best sheep country in South 
America, nearly 1,500 miles south of Buenos Aires 
and nearly 2,000 miles south of Corrientes, the 
northernmost point that I was destined to reach. 

We were not so near the south pole as I had 
fancied; we were only as far south of the equator 
as Yorkshire is north of it, and in the latitude of 
the southern part of Hudson's Bay. However, 
these southern latitudes are colder than the corre- 
sponding ones in the north, and we were below the 
line of successful cultivation of farm crops. In my 
notebook I find this : 

11 Hello! It is cold! We are nearing Punta 
Arenas town ; the white caps are dashing up finely ; 
back from the coast a little way are high, rough 
hills and on their sheltered sides are the remains 
of ancient forests ; they tell me of beech, but they 
look to be mostly dead from fires. The land looks 
grassy, though, and some sheep can be seen from 
the ship." 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 61 

SHEEP IN CHILIAN TERRITORY. 

Punta Arenas is a most interesting city, the 
farthest south of any town in the world, if we ex- 
cept Ushuaia in Tierra del Fuego. The city is 
solidly bnilt of stone, for the greater part, with 
paved streets of stones as large as peck measures. 
There are good shops where one can buy almost 
anything in the way of personal needs at moderate 
prices, as it is a free port. Some of the residences 
are pretty, with one or two aspiring to grandeur. 
It has its plaza with flowers and a tree fully eight 
feet tall. It also is one of the windy places of the 
earth. Punta Arenas is in Chilian territory, , as 
Chili owns the land along both shores of the straits 
and a little more than half the island of Tierra del 
Fuego; in fact, the territory of Magellanes, as this 
Chilian land is called, is a region about as large 
as the state of Ohio, roughly speaking. Much of 
it is water; some of it is high, rough mountains, 
but a great area is good grass-covered land, both of 
hill country and of plain. It is a wonderful coun- 
try for sheep. That seems all that it is suited for, 
however, being too cold for agriculture, and rather 
too thinly grassed for beef cattle. 

I had a happy time of a few days at Punta 
Arenas. Kind old Consul John E. Rowen had a 
snug cottage there with a garden in which grew 
currants, gooseberries, strawberries and hardy 
flowers. He had also a fire beside which I sat in 
the evenings with satisfaction. It was a live town. 
There were German and English wool merchants; 



62 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

their great warehouses were filled with wool, and 
men busily assorting it. I saw no Yankees. It was 
a delight to go into the great wool lofts and see 
the piles of delightfully clean, strong, soft, wool, 
all of uniform quality. The German wool mer- 
chants were glad to give me information. This was 
the home of the Eomney sheep. The original sheep 
had been more of a Lincoln or Leicester type, com- 
ing from the Falkland Islands. The Romneys 
proved hardier and better suited to the cold, bleak 
surroundings ; so they were being used more and 
more largely, and by cross-breeding were supplant- 
ing the other breeds. 

I longed exceedingly to cross the straits to the 
island of Tierra del Fuego, said to be the best sheep 
country in South America, but circumstances were 
against me. In the first place that enormous ter- 
ritory is leased from Chili by one great company, 
the Sociedad Explotadora. The terms of this lease 
are very favorable to the company, and the lease 
was about to expire. Further, the company owned 
the little steamers that ply these waters and at that 
time it was not desirable that an inquisitive Yankee 
should be spying around over their sheep-runs. The 
men were kind and courteous to me, but they did 
not make it possible for me to see their sheep farms 
on the island. I did not wonder at this. The com- 
pany gave me all the facts that I required, with a 
full report of its operations. It does a great busi- 
ness and is managed splendidly by New Zealanders. 

The land is divided into great runs, each one 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 63 

in charge of an expert pastoralist. They have both 
cattle and sheep; their lands are on both sides of 
the straits and they own as much land as would 
make a fair-sized state and lease the rest. They 
had about 1,200,000 good sheep, which were intelli- 
gently managed. Seeking to know what the produc- 
tion of wool cost them, I learned that it cost them 
nothing at all, as the sales of mutton, tallow and 
pelts more than paid all expenses. They have their 
own freezing works and plants for rendering out 
tallow from sheep too old or too big for the English 
market. I was told that on the island Lincoln sheep 
grew as large sometimes as yearling calves and 
were then not liked in England. They were there- 
fore boiled down" for their tallow, or more likely 
these days, were canned Now the company is im- 
porting many Romney and Corriedale rams, find- 
ing them better suited to their needs than any 
others. 

There is a considerable popular outcry against 
the Sociedad Explotadora because of its having a 
monopoly of the best sheep lands — in fact, of near- 
ly all the lands in that region ; yet, after all, it is 
not a world-loss. It is like what we call a big trust, 
intelligently managed. The pastures are conserved 
and improved ; the maximum amount of wool and 
mutton is taken from the soil at the lowest cost, 
and it is put on the market of the world as cheaply 
as is possible, so there is no world-loss. Further, 
from what I saw of the native population (not In- 
dian), about Punta Arenas, I think it as well that 



64 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

the land is not open to settlement in homesteads or 
small lots, as is our public land in North America. 
And yet there were intelligent Englishmen dispos- 
sessed to make room for this giant company. It is 
true that they were bought out, but they had to 
sell. The Falkland islanders brought sheep to these 
lands. At first there was trouble with the Indians, 
who would raid the sheep, driving off whole flocks 
and killing them out of mere wantonness, or bog- 
ging them in morasses. Now the Indians are near- 
ly extinct; a few are being "civilized" and are dy- 
ing of tuberculosis. 

I called on His Excellency the Governor of the 
territory, Seiior Chaigneon, who received me with 
kind courtesy. Alas, my new-found Spanish words, 
learned with so much care on shipboard, seemed to 
be none of them applicable to the case, so I had to 
use an interpreter, and that robbed an interview 
of much. In pursuit of information I put these 
questions : ? 

LAND LAWS OF CHILI. 

"Your Excellency, I wish to know about the 
land laws of Chili. Can I get a copy of them from 
you?" 

"Sehor, there are no land laws in Chili at all 
like yours of North America"' was the smiling re- 
sponse. 

"Then, Your Excellency, if I wish to buy land 
here in your territory, how may I secure it?" 

"You apply to me for a grant of it," was his 
reply. 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 65 

"And that settles the matter?" 

"Yes, only my grant must be confirmed by the 
President at Santiago." 

I am not a calumniator of a foreign people's gov- 
ernment, but I confess that I came away smiling 
and saying to myself, "Well, we protest in the 
United States if there is some little irregularity 
in the administration of our land laws, but our worst 
sins against the people would look white compared 
with what might happen down here." 

Later I conceived a motto that might with pro- 
priety be placed over the entrance to the Govern- 
ment house at Punta Arenas: "We protect the 
rich; God will look after the poor." That motto 
might very likely be placed over the entrance to 
the Government houses of more than one South 
American republic. 

All the land near the straits is taken, fenced 
and occupied ; there is no chance of any increase 
in the number of sheep here ; indeed a hard winter 
might thin them considerably. There is no farm- 
ing done, although oats are sown for hay to feed 
the horses of Punta Arenas. The crop is cut green 
and brought often to town in ox carts, drawn by 
huge gaunt oxen. Potatoes will mature sometimes. 
Drouth, high wind and frost are serious drawbacks 
to agriculture. Par in the back country, near the 
Andes, there is yet a little unoccupied land, but it 
was being stocked at the time of my visit, and it 
is unsafe land when severe winters come with much 
snow. Sometimes all the sheep then perish. 



66 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

What is sheep-farming like down here? It is 
the simplest process possible. The pastures are 
carefully fenced; the flocks are turned into them; 
once or twice a year the sheep are dipped; scab ex- 
ists in the flocks on some estancias. The lambs 
are marked, the sheep are shorn, and some driven 
away and sold. Often they are taken to the frigori- 
ficos (freezing works) by small steamers that ply 
along the coast and penetrate the maze of water 
passages that intersect the land. Men never feed 
the sheep; there is no possibility of that. There 
are no wolves. Wild dogs once abounded and are 
still occasionally seen. The puma or mountain lion 
is uncommon, but it is destructive when it does ap- 
pear. Many Scottish shepherds are employed as 
also are Scottish, English and New Zealand man- 
agers. Native people of Spanish blood who own 
estancias quite generally employ English managers. 
The native labor is "Chilleno," a mixture of Span- 
ish and Indian — a small, muscular, dark-skinned peo- 
ple who work well when mixed in with other and 
good men. I confess that these Chillenos did not 
appeal to me as a class, though their efficiency as 
plainsmen and ox-drivers bringing wool down from 
far distant estancias is first-class. There are men 
whom I, unarmed at night, had rather meet. 

The Argentine Government sent here to meet 
me Dr. Juan Bichelet, a veterinarian and inspector 
of the southern provinces. He was an educated, cul- 
tured Uruguayan, and a genial companion. I think 
that he did not understand my liking for long walks 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 



67 



over sheep pastures, my climbing hills just to gaze 
from their tops, or my wandering to places alone. 
The pastures spread quite down to the town of 
Punta Arenas; they are covered with a thick, close 
sod, almost like our Kentucky bluegrass, but the 
herbage is of a different species. It is a shorter 
and finer grass. Nowhere else in South America 
did I see such excellent pasturage, although I was 
told that it was yet finer on the island. I walked 
long distances over these pastures, studying the 
grasses, the shrubs and flowers. Fire had killed 
nearly all the forest trees in that region ; there had 
been but two species — a beech and a "robley." 
They would never be reproduced, but fine, thick 
grass occupied their places. However, the black- 
ened trunks looked dismal in a land where trees are 
so rare. Some of the trees had trunks three feet 
thick. There are saw mills near by, and fair lum- 
ber is made, competing with our wood from the 
United States, which also comes to Punta Arenas. 
I admired much the fine-bodied sheep, full of Rom- 
ney blood, their appearance of perfect health and 
the lusty lambs, weighing then often as much as 
125 pounds. There were in the pastures too those 
great-framed gaunt oxen that are so able to draw 
heavy loads. -^ 

A<<FRIGORIFICO.'' 

One day we drove to Rio Seco, where there is 
a great establishment for freezing mutton for ex- 
port to Europe. Down by the water's edge was the 
plant; the offal was thrown into the water, where 



68 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

it was devoured by thousands of gulls. I suspect 
that it is now made into fertilizer, as is being done 
in other similar establishments near by. We saw 
the lambs enter the chutes and emerge frozen as 
hard as icicles, ready to be shipped to European 
markets. The work was well and cleanly done, and 
the Englishman who eats the mutton will have no 
reason to complain; the lambs are prime as they 
go in and should reach English shores in good con- 
dition, 

I spent an hour searching for traces of parisitism 
in the carcasses, but found none. There are no 
traces of our hateful and fatal nodular disease, or 
stomach worms. Either these diseases have not 
been introduced, which seems incredible, or the dry- 
ness and cold are fatal to their propagation. This 
then is the one absolute paradise for sheep that I 
have found. It has no internal parasites or wild 
beasts and not too much snow in winter or heat in 
summer and it has abundance of sweet grass. "Would 
it be a good place for mankind of our sort? I 
think so. What makes me feel so is that I saw a 
tiny garden sheltered from the wind by a fence, and 
in that garden the finest pansies that I have ever 
seen were in bloom, and back of it the yellow Scotch 
broom was a blaze of yellow. But let no one go 
there to farm; it is far too cold, too boisterous and 
the land is now all owned and held too at relatively 
high prices. 

The land is measured in square leagues of 2,500 
hectares or nearly 6,250 acres. On the best lands 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 



69 




- •■■-7.. ; ."'M'-^-'^;;-^,; 



SHEA-RING SHEDS AND DIPPING VAT. 




FRIOORIFICO ON STRAITS OF MAGELLAN. 



70 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

one can carry 3,000 or more sheep to the league 
in summer and winter. 

At the frigorifico they paid $2 to $2.25 each for 
superior lambs. Wool at Punta Arenas was worth 
about twenty cents a pound, more or less, according 
to its quality. 

I do not know that I am uncommonly ignorant, 
but I had come to Punta Arenas meaning to go on 
horseback northward, perhaps as far as the begin- 
ning of railways, at Bahia Blanca. In that manner 
I would see the estaneias thoroughly. It was a good 
plan, the two drawbacks being that there was no 
feed for horses enroute and the distance was about 
the same as from Chicago to the Utah line. To get 
a man to take me with carriage northward only to 
Eio Gallegos would cost about $100, so reluctantly 
I took my friend's advice and engaged passage in 
a coasting steamer for the next point of study, Rio 
Gallegos, a distance of about 200 miles. 

Perhaps some reader will be disappointed and 
say, "Why, he is making a most superficial study 
of the country." It is true, but my time was lim- 
ited and I had to see as much as possible of all the 
sheep raising regions that lay between Punta Are- 
nas and Corrientes, a distance of 2,000 miles to the 
northward. It was necessary, then, to move on. 

IN PATAGONIA. 

I quote again from my journal: "On steamer 
Gallegos, Feb. 21. I am sitting in a whaleboat, as 
there is not room on deck ; the promenade deck is 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 71 

only about eighteen feet long. The Gallegos is the 
tiniest seagoing craft that I have ever ridden. She 
has, however, twelve cabins and a tiny saloon. She 
is crammed with freight and people; even the boat 
in which I sit is laden. I have a tub of ferns and 
flowers at my feet, and lean against a crate of fur- 
niture. On the forward deck are crates of chick- 
ens and Rambouillet rams. We are churning along 
at the rate of six miles an hour. Every now and 
then the fireman goes below and throws in another 
shovelful of coal. From the lower deck one can 
dip one's hand in the salt water, and yet these 
coasts are often washed by terrific seas. It is a 
perfect day. The coast two miles away is bordered 
by long lines of cliffs, desolate to see. Sometimes 
on their summits we see yellow grass, and on one 
cliff a number of guanacos, strange, camel like ani- 
mals that stand and stare at us. I "am told that 
the native ostrich once lived as far south as this. 
Now the guanacos are the only survivors of wild 
nature, save the few pumas and the birds. Many 
wild ducks, resembling Muscovies, fly past us and 
beautiful black and white dolphins, accompany us. 
They dive, showing their graceful curves, come up 
again, swim with incredible swiftness past us, and 
dive again. It seems a game with them. Barring 
a black spot they are snowy white. These dolphins 
are warm-blooded things; I wonder how they keep 
their babies with them, suckle them and keep them 
warm in this ice water. There are large flocks of 
penguins in the water, and the gulls quarrel cease- 



72 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

lessly with them, perhaps hoping to share some fish 
that the penguin may catch. 

"I was too late to secure a berth on the Galle- 
gos last night and was amused to see the crowd of 
us that assembled to go aboard, many men with 
their families, and some nuns, poor things. It was 
a crowd that would have been enough for six such 
boats as this. However, we all came aboard and 
paid big prices for the privilege, too. If there is 
anyone down here in Patagonia for his health I 
have not heard of him. I wondered a great deal 
about what we would do to pass away the tedious 
night hours. We sat jammed in the tiny cabin, 
filled with smoke, the poor sisters huddled together 
in a corner, the men having wine and playing cards 
on the dining table. There is a young Argentino, 
Ernesto Behr, of German ancestry, who has a cab- 
in engaged, and he came to me and insisted on my 
taking his bed. I protested without avail and final- 
ly accepted ; he slept on a sort of lounge which was 
too short, but our feet lay across one another. 
Seiior Behr insisted that an Argentino would never 
permit a guest of some foreign land to sit up while 
he enjoyed a bed. % delightful young man, I won- 
der whether we could show just his equal in fine 
courtesy at home. This morning the men in the 
cabin still sat and played cards and drank wine, 
while the sisters in their corner no doubt endlessly 
said their prayers. Why did we not give them our 
beds! Because another man occupied an upper 
berth in our cabin. 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 73 

"Afternoon: Lovelier and lovelier becomes the 
scene — the water so blue and the sky so clear. Such 
delightfully ornamental little fleecy clouds never 
were meant for aught but ornament. Our old tub 
is peacefully nosing her way along. Sehor Behr 
and I sit together in the whaleboat, and he teaches 
me Spanish. Breakfast, at noon, was amusing. Our 
one waiter is a peon, who is very slow and stupid ; 
he became confused by the many orders shouted at 
him. The ' courses' were far apart. The new gov- 
ernor of the territory of Santa Cruz borrowed the 
one napkin on ship, and audibly blew his nose on 
it, then passed it back for general use. Later some 
senoritas, dining in state in their tiny cabin, sent 
for it, and it was carried to them. Credit Punta 
Arenas for growing delicious lettuce for salad. 

"We approached Eio Gallegos, entered a large 
bay and landed at a gravelly beach. A one-story 
house of galvanized iron was Hotel Londres, and 
a straggling row of houses marked the street of 
the capital of a great region. One or two dead 
horses lay in the street, well flattened out by being 
run over by the enormous wheels of bullock carts 
laden with wool. It was Sunday afternoon in the 
most remote, the wildest and the most God-forsaken 
spot that it has ever been my lot to see. The tide 
went out, falling forty-five feet, leaving our vessel 
sifting on the sand (she is built as square as a 
dry goods box, on purpose for this contingency), 
and bullock carts came about her to remove a part 
of her cargo. 



74 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

"With Dr. Richelet I went to Hotel Espanol, 
hoping that there I might learn a little of the Span- 
ish language. It was a queer little hostelry, of gal- 
vanized iron, none too clean, bnt then the wind came 
sweeping in, bringing the dust of the street ; but the 
senora who managed it was a good, kind, hard- 
working woman, and the food was excellent — better 
in fact, than one secures in even high-class hotels 
in North America. That dinner table was an in- 
ternational affair. We had on it condensed milk 
from Switzerland, jam from London, butter from 
Sweden, olives from Spain, salads from Chile, wine 
from Mendoza and meats from Patagonia. Our 
bread was no doubt from Argentine flour. Coffee 
(from Brazil) was served in our rooms, if we de- 
sired it, breakfast coming at noon. There would 
be always a good soup, then boiled mutton, boiled 
beef and beef steak. The bread was good, as it 
always is in Latin countries. We had potatoes from 
Chile and wine in enormous decanters on the table 
and partaken of very freely. Wine is rather more 
plentiful than good water at Rio Gallegos, situated 
on an alkaline or salt flat with no good wells. 

"We were a happy family at Hotel Espanol. 
Dr. Richelet and half a dozen young Spanish men, 
newly come to various government appointments 
in various parts of Patagonia, waited there for 
ships to carry them on to their new posts. We had 
a special dining-room to ourselves, and for the first 
time I sat among men who conversed in Spanish 
only. What fine, bronzed, mustached, black-eyed, 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 75 

handsome men they were. How they did eat and 
drink and how merry they were. I remember won- 
dering vaguely whether if I were to eat and drink 
as much as they did, if I should live as they lived. 
I too might perhaps become robust looking and for- 
get my hereditary ills. I ventured to test the thing 
in a mild way, but soon concluded that the differ- 
ences between us were internal as well as external; 
that to eat and drink as merrily as they did would 
simply kill me, so regretfully I resumed my old 
occupation of being myself." 

The Spanish language I had carefully studied 
for more than a month. The only words I could 
catch in the swift flow of excited conversation were 
"manana" or "cinco centavo" or a word that iden- 
tified an article of diet. I did learn from a man 
who sat next to me to say, when leaving the table, 
' ' con su permission ' ' (with your permission) . I may 
as well here own that I did not learn enough Span- 
ish to catch all of a table conversation. It is most 
difficult. However, one learns, after a while, that 
it is not necessary to know what others are saying 
if only one can make them understand what he him- 
self says. I must say of these Spanish Argentinos 
that while they were strenuous and, during carnival 
week, went a pace in dissipation, yet they were 
always courteous and kindly. Is it not too bad that 
perfection seldom is lodged in any one person or 
race? 

I had much writing to do and there was no 
writing-room, save a small table in the dining- 



76 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

room; but at the back of the house the senora had 
a glass-covered veranda, a sort of Patagonian con- 
servatory, and in it flowers and plants. I asked 
her if I might not sit there to write. She cheer- 
fully assented, and placed there a table for me. 
In this conservatory were hollyhocks, now nearly 
past blooming, and other flowers that in nature 
grow outdoors in temperate climes. There also 
was a stalk of maize as high as my shoulder, to 
which the senora pointed with just pride in its beau- 
ty and thrift. As coal is all brought from Eng- 
land, and there is no other fuel, fires were never 
needlessly kindled. In the room adjoining the con- 
servatory was the sitting-room of the senora and 
there on a charcoal fire they heated irons and did 
the ironing of sheets and pillow cases. I was 
tempted to ask to be permitted to sit in this room, 
but hardly dared. Already the cold was being felt 
■ — the cold that was to pursue me for some months 
and make my fur-lined overcoat a thing of joy. 
Often I would put it on when I went into my room, 
even though I might not need it when outdoors. 

The senora had about her a number of children 
and on this topic we became confidential. I ex- 
plained to her that my own "muchachos" were al- 
ready taller than I, and she presented her own 
smiling and blushing little senoritas. She was a 
very good senora, of a kind heart and full of good 
works. As I sat writing my interminable reports 
for my Government, there arrived a very merry 
lot of children, mostly senoritas, wonderfully ar- 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 77 

rayed. They were dressed for the carnival that 
began next day. What gorgeous and fantastic cos- 
tumes they wore, what bright colors, what merry 
faces they had, how dark and appealing their eyes, 
how oval and sweet the contour of their faces. The 
Patagonia air had made their cheeks far too rosy to 
need the rouge pot. They were much like merry 
children anywhere — all animation and laughter and 
whisperings, a bit abashed at the presence of the 
"Norte Americano." One maiden was dressed as 
we imagine Pocahontas to have been dressed. 

A CARNIVAL WEEK. 

That night there came to the hotel some Span- 
ish singers with castanets ; they sang and danced 
for our entertainment, very much as people dance 
in old Spain and certainly with grace and abandon. 
All this was because of carnival week. Tiring of 
my writing, I went for a walk in the town. A tame 
guanaco wandered meekly about, seeking a wisp 
of hay; at the post office I attempted to send a 
telegram but after much patient labor the official 
made me understand that the line was "ill." It 
was perhaps the wind that had overthrown it. 

Everyone had done all that could be done to 
make shop or residence gay, with bunting, ribbons 
and streamers, for the carnival. One street had 
even been cleaned, although on nearby streets the 
dead horses were yet lying, and in the clean street 
there was a booth for the senoras and senoritas to 
sit and review the passing show, 



78 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

I spent next day an hour at the carnival; it 
was well worth while. Beautifully decorated car- 
riages passed and repassed; as they went along 
streamers of paper ribbon were thrown over them 
and confetti already carpeted the street. There 
were cleverly decorated horses, too, although the 
horses themselves needed an internal decoration 
of oats and alfalfa. One motor car took part in 
the parade, and an ingenious youth mounted a bi- 
cycle on stilts, so that he was far aloft. With grave, 
courteous merriment the parade wended its way 
back and forth, back and forth; endlessly the col- 
ored ribbons were thrown and endlessly the clouds 
of confetti filled the air. It was all the echo of 
other carnivals held in Spain and Italy, in cities 
in the far-distant North, and cities of South Amer- 
ica. There were seven balls in Gallegos that night ; 
I think my Spanish friends attended each one, com- 
ing home at daybreak and arising next day at two 
o 'clock. 

My stay at Gallegos was far longer than I had 
planned or wished. I must await the coming of a 
steamer to take me northward, and that perhaps 
would not arrive for weeks — "quien sabe?" (who 
knows?) The steamers that plied that coast stopped 
at many ports and discharged cargo or loaded wool. 
Meanwhile, I was forced to make the best of it. I 
found it was impossible to hire a horse during the 
carnival, or to buy one. However, I was not idle ; 
various estancieros came to town, and I interviewed 
them. There was James Welsh, manager, with his 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 79 

estancia only eighty miles inland, and 80,000 sheep 
under his care. Mr. Welsh came to town to deliver 
some thousands of fat sheep to the canning factory. 
This great establishment could take thousands of 
sheep each clay, with despatch and some neatness, 
and put them in tins for England. 

The sheep were bought by the head, although 
it was a rule that they must weigh a certain amount 
dressed. Thus Mr. "Welsh remained some days 
during the killing of his sheep, and weighed a lot 
of their carcasses after they were dressed, until 
both he and the killers were satisfied with the av- 
erage. Mr. Welsh 'sold the wethers for about $2.25 
per head. They were good ones, but only fat 
enough for canning. There had been a most seri- 
ous drouth, and while drouth is a normal condition 
here this one had been unusually prolonged, and 
sheep were not considered fat. Mr. Welsh had on 
the river Coyle a few little meadows of native grass 
that he cut for his horses during winter. He knew 
the country well and thought that there was no room 
for another sheep in it, so well was it all taken and 
stocked. He left, after delivering his sheep, for 
Punta Arenas to secure a lot of Eomney rams. He 
had lived in Texas and longed to see the the states 
again. He had built adobe houses on the estancia 
and rode in an American motor car with high 
wheels, which were necessary because the rivers are 
not bridged. He made his estancia pay 20 per cent 
dividends to the owners. 

I spent hours in the wool-sorting sheds, seeing 



80 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

the deftness with which the sorters selected fleeces 
and put those of one quality by themselves, so that 
when finally the wool reached Germany it was ready 
with no further assorting- for the machines. "Wool 
was the topic of conversation here — wool and mut- 
ton, and the prospect of the forthcoming winter. 
If a hard winter came with much snow many sheep 
would die, possibly nearly all of them. It was 
March, and that means September down there; lit : 
tie grass would grow after that time. Thus there 
was uneasiness among the estancieros. Snow is 
more apt to lie here than along the Straits of Ma- 
gellan, and sometimes losses among sheep are most 
severe. Men told stories of hard winters that piled 
snow over the tops of fences, and of how the sheep 
drifted out of the pastures and off, no one "knew 
where, so that the losses were almost entire in 
some instances. Nothing could be fed them, of 
course, for there is as yet absolutely no agriculture 
here and God only "knows whether there will ever 
be. 

AN ESTANCIERO AND HIS GARDEN. 

There was also another interesting estanciero, 
Mr. Felton, who came in the early days from the 
Falkland islands and settled on the river. He owns 
20,000 sheep and is rich and prosperous. He keeps 
his own sailboat for bringing down wool and tak- 
ing back supplies, but his garden interested me 
most. It is a wonder, a subject of conversation all 
over Patagonia. It is surrounded by high walls 
and fences to break the wind, and is supplied with 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 81 

a primitive irrigation system. Here Mr. Felton 
grows apples, cherries, currants, gooseberries, veg- 
etables and many flowers. Scoffers say that he 
spends as much effort on his garden as on all the 
rest of his estancia; perhaps it is worth as much 
to him. He was a most interesting man, a typical 
colonial Britisher, observing the niceties of life, tak- 
ing his wife occasionally for a season in London, 
loving good living and comfort and yet a fine, stur- 
dy, energetic, enthusiastic man, well worth know- 
ing. He had so well tested the plants of the world 
that he had growing in his garden the buffalo .ber- 
ry, a native to our -dry western plains. 

Wind, Mr. Felton says, is the worst enemy of 
plant life in Patagonia. It curiously influences 
vegetation. He had growing the Lombardy pop- 
lar, a tree naturally very erect, tall and slender. 
Feeling the wind, it had grown a short, stout, stocky 
trunk, double its normal diameter, and was only 
half its normal height, but high enough, no doubt. 
How furiously the wind blew. It would clean the 
streets of Gallegos, drifting sand and debris up 
against the houses, or perhaps it would take all 
out to the vacant spaces beyond. I met coming 
down the street a small flock of empty kerosene 
tins, tumbling merrily over and over up the street. 

"That is some wind," I remarked to a native. 

"What! Do you call this wind? Why, man, 
when it really blows hard here you could see cast 
iron stoves rolling along the street instead of empty 
tins." 



82 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

I believed him. Every house is encased in close- 
fitting galvanized iron, which effectually keeps the 
wind out. It is a windy country. 

"It is a lovely climate," said Alfred Barclay, 
manager of the English canning factory and the 
new frigorifico, just erected. Later he explained 
that the climate is finer in winter, that then the 
wind does not blow. I should say that I saw it 
blow fully fifty miles an hour while I was there. 
However, the skies were very beautiful. Usually 
the sun was bright and when there were clouds 
they were often light, fleecy, seemingly existing 
merely for ornament. In the evenings there would 
be the most marvelous sunsets that I have seen 
anywhere — great banks of cloud, perhaps, with all 
the gorgeous colors that one could imagine. And 
yet little or no rain fell ; what showers came were 
hungrily swept up by the mad wind. It is in win- 
ter when the snows melt and moisten the soil so 
that enough moisture accumulates to make the grass 
grow. Like our own West, a dry winter may mean 
starvation to the flocks ; a snowy winter may mean 
the loss Of many sheep, but those that live through 
will find grass in abundance. 

The carnival terminated at last; most of the 
people of Gallegos sobered up and a doleful lot 
they were for a time. Then I could hire horses and 
get into the camp. We left the last wayside drink- 
ing place, and entered a wide, flat plain, strewn for 
some miles with old tin cans, bottles, the remains 
of dead horses and other rubbish of the town. There 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 83 

was a little grass, which was very short, and town 
horses nibbled it. It was unfenced fiscal land. Then 
the fences began and the estancias came into view; 
we entered a wide road, or ' • camino, ' ' about 100 me- 
ters wide, running straight back toward the Andes. 
The road was supposed to have grass on it for pass- 
ing flocks of sheep and the bullocks that bring down 
the wool from the Andes. Alas, the grass had 
mostly disappeared and the wind blown away the 
top soil, revealing the gravel beds, of which most 
of Patagonia is composed. This is indeed all an old 
sea beach, not very long lifted above the sea, as a 
careful observer may readily understand. 

The pastures were now on either side of us. The 
fences were splendidly strong, with their smooth 
wires passed through holes bored through the posts 
and likewise through wooden stays. All the wires 
were taut. South America has the best fences in 
the world. The sheep nibbled the short grass ; they 
were Eomneys, mostly, though there was some evi- 
dence of the blood of the Rambouillet-Merino. The 
sheep were in good condition, even though the grass 
was short. 

We passed little huts of galvanized iron; these 
were for the "puesteros" or pasture attendants. 
There was not about these huts a shrub or a tree, 
nor rarely evidence of any women living there; 
perhaps that is a fortunate thing. The pastures 
were very large; they may contain 6,000 acres or 
much more. The puestero sees that the fences are 
good, that pumas do not kill, and keeps a sharp 



84 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

lookout for the appearance of the dreaded disease, 
scab. It is seldom that the presence of scab, even at 
the outset, escapes his detection. 

EL CAMINO DEL LANA— A HIGHWAY. 

Let us imagine ourselves on the spot for the 
moment. What is this coming to meet us 1 A great 
cavalcade of ox carts laden with wool. What huge 
wheels they have. The oxen, great, gaunt, half- 
famished, patient creatures, come wearily on. Their 
swarthy drivers are Chilians. They may be good 
men, but they scarcely look it. Poor, weary oxen, 
you are near to the end of your long road. Prom the 
far-distant Andes have you come; weeks have you 
been on the way. The grass has been scanty, the 
load heavy, in places the road terrific. Soon now you 
will get at least a few feeds of alfalfa, I hope; 
then will you turn toward the -mountain pastures 
again, but not with empty cart — no, they must car- 
ry back food, fence wires, all the hundreds of things 
that are needed in the distant camp. When, I wonder, 
will you ever have time to stand tranquil beside 
clear streams, filled with grass, and chewing the 
cud of contentment? Nevermore, perhaps, for this 
is a stern, cruel and savage land. 

The boyeros (ox-drivers), walk beside their 
straining beasts with long goad sticks in their 
hands. They are as kind as they can be to their 
patient bueys (oxen), but, when once the load is 
on the cart and the start made for the sea, what 
would you do? Must not the wool come? Can the 



travel sketches by jos. e. wing 85 

drivers make grass to grow in the caminos? If 
the roads are bad, who is there to mend them where 
houses are leagues apart? It is indeed a terrible 
road — "el camino del lana," the road of the wool. 
Think what suffering exists for our comfort that 
we and others in chilly England may be warmed 
by these soft fleeces. The puestero endures life in 
a tiny iron hut, absolutely without pleasure, if his 
bottle of spirits has run dry. He rides endlessly 
through the bitter cold; he is howled at and flung 
about by the cruel wind. Thus are the sheep 
watched and the wool is grown. The sheep them- 
selves endure the biting cold of winter, pawing 
their scanty grass from beneath the snow with their 
tiny feet, living through the winters, perhaps, and 
coming with joy to springtime. Then are the lambs 
born on the sheltered slopes; then springs the good 
green grass ; then are the sheep happy enough. The 
wool is shorn by swift machines and baled in great 
bales. The bales are loaded on carts, the oxen are 
brought from the pastures and the wool begins its 
journey toward the coast, and toward our backs. It 
is a long trip, interesting to study. 

There is no farming yet ; there can be none until 
irrigation has been provided, so the poor bueys 
must get along as best they can. The boyeros are 
the Arabs of the camps ; every man's hand is against 
them and their hand is against every man, yet they 
have certain sterling qualities — endurance and un- 
complaining fortitude being the foremost. They fol- 
low their creaking carts and their straining beasts 



86 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

all day. At night they perhaps hack down a fence 
post or two (in a land with no wood) and make their 
tiny camp fire. The wind howls and shrieks abont 
their tiny camp; they huddle in their ponchos 
(cloaks) over the fire, sip eternally their mate 
(Paraguayan tea) and lie down to sleep in a bed 
that would freeze you in short order. Morning 
comes; early they are astir; the bueys are yoked 
with those curious Spanish yokes that attach to the 
horns and over the forehead, and the journey is 
begun again. When the port is reached, or one of 
the rare "boliches," or taverns, the boyeros drink, 
as might be expected. Sometimes, indeed, unless 
the "capitaz" (foreman) is along the caravan comes 
to a halt near the drinking place, for how long, 
quien sabe? 

Death takes toll of the famished, over-driven 
bueys. One sees them dead along the way, or their 
skeletons picked clean by the little pampas foxes. 
Truly "el camino del lana" is one of the most ter- 
rible in the world, and the memory of it will go with 
me, unwelcome though it be, to my last day. 

There is wool back by the Andes that has waited 
for years to be shipped. Transportation is one 
of the great problems of Patagonia. There is 
not enough freight to justify railways ; no one has 
yet shown how to inaugurate agriculture. Hio Gal- 
legos is a fine stream, affording probably enough 
irrigation water for 50,000 acres; some day surely 
it will be dammed, put into canals, made to grow 
alfalfa and perhaps wheat, and then there will be 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 87 

less reason for setting famished oxen to terrible 
tasks. 

FARMING ON THE EIO GALLEGOS. 

Always a dreamer of dreams, I seemed to fore- 
see the day when the Gallegos would flow through 
great canals from the interior, bringing down the 
wool in barges — bringing its life-giving waters to 
wide stretches of alfalfa, The estancieros replied 
that the wind would blow away the soil, were it 
plowed, clear down to the rounded cobblestones of 
the subsoil. This would no doubt be true ; only that 
irrigation could precede the plow. Wet soil does 
not drift, and once alfalfa was established the soil 
would blow no more. Dreams, these, but I am sure 
that the world-hunger for land to till will some day 
make them come true. 

Speaking of dreams, how I longed to be ap- 
pointed governor of the territory of Santa Cruz. 
Nowhere else in the world, I feel assured, is there 
so much to be done as here. With a government 
intelligent and constructive, a slight tax on the es- 
tancias would provide funds, so that water could 
be brought from Rio Gallegos, the town provided 
with streets from the millions of tons of fine gravel 
at hand, and a plaza, with grass, flowers and pos- 
sibly trees would come. How the fine, intelligent 
estancieros about Gallegos and all over Santa Cruz 
would welcome such a change. Now when they wish 
to go to town, they go far to Punta Arenas, or 
to London. 



88 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

I did not penetrate very far into the interior be- 
cause there was not time; but I went far enough to 
see that the land consists of great plains, plateaus, 
or a series of mesas. Usually it is all smooth and 
grassy, as would be the plains of the more thinly 
grassed parts of eastern Colorado. Sometimes one 
would find small shrubs, among them the califate, 
a wild barberry with big, sweet, delicious berries. 
This fruit should be in cultivation in North Ameri- 
ca. I learned, with delight, that the Scotch broom 
has gone wild here; I wish the gorse might be in- 
troduced for its shelter and beauty, as well as its 
tender, nourishing twigs - which sheep eat. 

EARLY DAYS IN PATAGONIA. 

One night at the hotel Herbert Felton told me 
the story of his coming to Patagonia, and his settle- 
ment at Killik-aike. From the bleak, windswept, 
peaty pastures of the Palklands he came in 1887— 
up overland from Punta Arenas, spying out what 
was a virgin land. With good judgment he chose 
for his location the riverside, where he could load 
wool in his own sloop and take it to port. Two 
years later he brought sheep from the Falkland Is- 
lands. At first they were herded during the day by 
mounted shepherds and dogs and corralled at night. 
He had the usual difficulties of pioneers. He once 
caught a puma by its tail as it was crawling in 
between some rocks. He had no fear of the 
animal. Once a fire swept away his shear- 
ing sheds and his wool clip, just as he was 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 89 

ready to enjoy the fruits of his labors, but gradual- 
ly he took firm anchor. Fences made herding easy, 
his sheep increased like the sands of the sea and 
new sheds replaced the ones burned. His sheep 
graze over 175 miles of territory, and his 30,000 
sheep, wisely managed, enabled him and his wife to 
live where they would ; indeed they have made more 
than one trip to London during the season. But they 
loved Patagonia, loved their garden, which they 
achieved with such labor and care, were in perfect 
health and would not be long satisfied in any other 
spot. 

One day we rode on native hard-gaited ponies to 
an estancia at the crossing of Rio Gallegos. A new 
iron bridge was being erected — a godsend to all the 
country to the north of the river, for swimming 
sheep and horses has been perilous work in the past. 
I quote from my diary : 

"Mr. Carr's estancia house is a low one-story 
iron affair, as are all the houses in this land of high 
winds. Within we found comfort, coziness, almost 
elegance. Various illustrated London papers were 
in the tiny drawing room; our hostess served us 
with a four-course dinner, a white-capped maid do- 
ing deft service. Coffee was served in the draw- 
ing-room. Mr. Carr told us of his experiences of 
early days in Tierra del Fuego, when the Indians 
were troublesome. He lived there then and knew 
all the terror of the Indian raid, the following of 
flocks driven off in the night, the sickening horror 
of finding the sheep dead in bogs or disemboweled 



90 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

by the wanton savages. It was necessary practically 
to exterminate the Tierra del Fuego Indians be- 
fore sheep could safely be grown there. In Pata- 
gonia the Indians were never numerous or trouble- % 
some; they had melted away now, disappearing be- 
fore the white man much as our own Indians have 
done in North America. Some had gone to work for 
the estancieros ; others were near the Andes where 
grass was better and water more plentiful. 

"Both Mr. Felton and Mr. Carr told of their 
trouble with guanacos. These singular beasts are 
of the camel tribe ; they stand about six feet tall 
and have slender necks and small heads. They are 
yellowish in color. They once existed in countless 
numbers along the coasts. They broke the fences 
because they had not learned to jump over them. 
The beasts were of no value excepting that their 
skins made good bed covers. After a time they be- 
came wary and difficult to shoot. However, their 
numbers were now much diminished. The ostrich 
also once existed here, but it was nearly extinct." 

A PATAGONIAN ESTANCIA. 

Best of all my memories of Rio Gallegos is my 
visit to Estancia Chymen Aike. I made two starts 
for Chymen Aike ; the first one was unsuccessful 
because my horse gave out and I had to make an in- 
glorious retreat to Gallegos to feed it and rest it- 
things that evidently its owner had neglected to do 
for some days. Next day the horse showed its grati- 
tude and drew two of us, Dr. Richelet and myself, 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 



91 



very well. That clay the wind did not blow and the 
sun shone. The way lay over the pleasant, almost 
grassy plain, intersected by tracks that led hither 
and yon, and one needed a guide to give directions. 
We found the gates of Ghymen Aike, however, and 
rejoiced. We first passed by a great shearing shed, 
its walls of concrete, glistening with whitewash, and 



I «; 




A PATAGONIAN RANCH HOUSE. 



its roof of galvanized iron. Next, in the sunny lit 
tie valley through which trickled a stream, and 
where vega grass grew, we came to a large house 
built for the men. It also glistened with white- 
wash and was very comfortable. Corrals covered 
one slope and fences enclosed pastures of no more 
than a hundred acres. This seemed homelike, es- 
pecially as pure-bred Romney rams fed within 



92 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

them. The atmosphere of the place was not like 
anything in North America, perhaps, yet if eastern 
Wyoming were so fenced and so stocked it wonld be 
strikingly similar. 

Malcolm McLeod, the manager, was working at 
the corral, assorting the rams. They would be 
turned with the ewes in April or May. He had 
perhaps 750 rams in the corral and pnt them rather 




CROSS-BRED ROMNEY SHEEP. 



rapidly through the assorting chute, taking out 
those that he knew to be somewhat old, or that he 
disliked for one reason or another. Some of the 
rams showed perhaps a quarter of Merino blood; 
these he was discarding, although I could not re- 
frain from remonstrating with him, for in North 
America we find that a certain percentage of Merino 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 93 

blood adds to the value of the fleece and the hardi- 
ness of the sheep as well. 

Mr. McLeod is a most thorough man. He dips 
his sheep with such care that he keeps the estancia 
practically free from scab — that disease of the skin 
that is caused hv an insect almost microscopically 
small and that if allowed to develop has a terrible ef- 
fect on its unhappy host. He had just told me that for 
a year there had been no sign of the trouble, when 
his face grew stern and troubled. "Catch that 
sheep," he called to his Scotch shepherds, and a ram 
was dragged out and examined. On its shoulder 
was a patch of wool licked until it was white. It was 
the " first symptom of infection. The shepherds 
were new from Scotland. "I have never seen scab 
before," one after the other confessed. "Well, now 
you know what to watch for. These rams ought to 
have been found and dipped before this." They 
were put in a pen by themselves, the half-dozen that 
undeniably were scabby to be immediately dipped, 
although all the lot would go through the vat with- 
in a short time. In the dense mob .of rams Mr. 
McLeod discovered a woebegone sheep that did not 
belong there. "Catch that scabby stray," he said. 
It was a mass of scab in an advanced stage. "This 
is none of our sheep. I don't know where it came 
from, how it got through our fences or who helped 
it over them, but that sheep is the source of our 
trouble. Take it down the hill and cut its throat." 

"Why, Mr. McLeod," I cried, "can you not cure 
it?" 



94 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

"Yes, no doubt, but it is worth no more than 
eight shillings ; why would I run the risk of having 
such a sheep about for eight shillings f It is hard to 
cure them when they are so bad as this one ; it takes 
several dippings to do the work." 

The rams were fat and fine, by far the most act- 
ive sheep that I had ever seen, barring the Black- 
face sheep in the Highlands of Scotland. The men 
work them always on horseback, with dogs, and 
gently as one might guess, being Scots, but they are 
too active to be worked on foot and the distances 
are too great. 

Down in the boiler room of the dipping house, 
where the bath is heated, there was a sight that 
made me wonder : a great pile of fuel neatly corded 
up, ready to be used in heating the boiler. It was a 
pile of some tons of the feet and legs of sheep, cut 
off just above the knees. These had been gathered 
up all over the estancia, wherever a sheep had died, 
and accumulated as sheep were killed to be eaten. 
Truly an enormous flock could have walked off on 
those little black feet. It illustrated the old truth, 
once expressed by Virgil — "the sheep is ever an 
unhappy flock." Even in favored Patagonia the 
sheep is not immortal. It must be remembered that 
in this cold, treeless country fuel is an important 
item ; all coal is brought from England and quite 
jrenerally dried sheep manure ,from the corrals is 
used as a substitute. 

A little before lunch time we went to Mr. Mc- 
Leod's house where a surprise awaited me. .The 






TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 95 

house sits down in a little rounded, smooth hollow 
or valley, grassy on the sides and bottom, and quite 
hidden as one rides across the plain. It is a modest 
structure, though so ambitious as to have two stor- 
ies, but it is surrounded with glass-covered porches, 
much like conservatories, and has a small yard en- 
closed by a tight board fence to break the wind. 
The door yard was a mass of bloom. Nowhere else 
in the world have I seen a gayer sight; nowhere 
else surely do flowers bloom so freely as here, al- 
though one must of course plant only very hardy 
things, as marigolds, pansies, daisies, broom and the 
like. Mrs. McLeod was a delight to meet. Keenly 
intelligent yet warm in her greetings, she made us 
feel as though we were in Scotland in the edge of 
the Highlands. She was from the islands of the 
west coast of Scotland and she found that seeds 
brought from there usually throve at Chymen Aike, 
if they had water and shelter from wind. Inside 
the glass-covered porches there was a riot of bloom 
— a hundred flowers and all blooming for dear life. 
The home was comfortable and filled with good 
books and English periodicals ; in fact, once one was 
within the walls of Chymen Aike one was trans- 
ported thousands of miles from the bleakness of 
the Patagonian plains to modern, civilized land, with 
many of the finest cultural influences. 

Chymen Aike is in many ways a model estancia. 
It is situated so that it suffers little from either 
drouth or excess of snow, and is well grassed and 
finely equipped. Best of all it is beautifully man- 



96 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

aged. I may here copy a part of an inventory lent 
me by Mr. McLeod : 

"Sixteen leagues (about 100,000 acres) of land, 
all freehold; 135 miles of fence; the shearing shed; 
six houses; the manager's house, wells and Ameri- 
can windmills; 29,000 sheep; 65 cattle; 100 horses." 

The sheep were worth a little less than $2.00 a 
head. The year under review there was marketed 
192,760 pounds of wool. The sheep sheared a little 
less than 7 pounds per head, which is fairly good, 
considering that many of them are ewes suckling 
lambs and that they are never fed. I quote again 
from my note book: 

"This land cost originally about $70,000. It 
would now be worth much more than that. It is 
divided into pastures of from 175 to 12,000 acres 
each. In these pastures are cottages where live 
Scotch shepherds. The shepherds have horses and 
try to see all of the sheep under their charge each 
day. As a matter of fact, this rarely is possible, 
but at least once in a few days the eye of the shep- 
herd is on each sheep. A man may have 10,000 
sheep under his care; oftener he has no more than 
3,000 to 5,000 head. His duty is to see that the 
fences are intact; that no scab appears among his 
sheep; that pumas and wild dogs do not trouble. 
The wages of the shepherds vary; new men receive 
$25 per month, and old faithful men as much as 
$40. As a rule they provide their own food, sold 
to them from the estancia at very moderate prices. 
At Christmas time the faithful men receive gifts of 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 97 

$15 each. A few Argentines and Chilians are em- 
ployed. Mr. McLeod had much to say to me about 
his help problem. He finds the Argentines good 
workers but they can not endure to stay long in 
Patagonia. 

Old or decrepit sheep are not permitted to die 
on the pastures if it can be avoided; instead the 
shepherds kill them, take off their skins and send 
their bodies to the rendering plant where the tal- 
low is extracted. Every sort of practical economy 
is found at Chymen Aike. The great shearing 
sheds and wool warehouse were as modern and good 
as could be made. Gasoline power turned the ma- 
chinery. The wool was very carefully assorted and 
baled on the place, and then sent direct to London. 
The rams were nearly all of Romney blood, pure 
or in part, and the ewes showed one or two crosses 
of this blood. The wool was so carefully assorted 
and marked that the buyer in London knew exactly 
what he was getting. The bellies were taken off, 
and baled separately, and rams' fleeces were by 
themselves. A bale of wool weighs from 500 to more 
than 700 pounds. I quote from the invoice a de- 
scription of a few bales : 

"Mark 116, 2d cross ewes, weight 730. Mark 
117, 1st cross ewes, weight 735 pounds. Mark 157, 
bellies, weight 656 pounds. Mark 72, 1st cross hogs 
(lambs), weight 705 pounds" — and so on for all the 
410 bags described and consigned. 

Estancia Chymen Aike sends to its owner in 
London a revenue of from $30,000 to $40,000 each 



98 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

year. It is, however, exceptionally well located and 
exceptionally well managed. 

Malcolm McLeod showed us with some pride his 
vegetable garden, wherein grew well all manner of 
hardy things, with currants and gooseberries ga- 
lore. He had also a little alfalfa, not irrigated, and 
so not very thrifty. It was probably the most 
southern alfalfa field in the world. At the time of 
my visit all of the estancieros were apprehensive of 
what the winter might bring. A hard winter with 
deep snow coming with pastures nearly bare would 
mean the loss of many sheep. "God tempers the 
wind to the shorn lamb" — sometimes, and this was 
one of the times, for the winter proved astonish- 
ingly mild, indeed almost frostless, although on oc- 
casion the mercury has been known to drop 40 de- 
grees below zero. 

AN OLD COLONIST, JOHN SCOTT. 

I met at Chymen Aike a fine old English colonist 
and flockmaster, John Scott. As he had had ex- 
perience of starting two new sheep farms, he was 
able to give interesting data. The laws of Argen- 
tina, of which Santa Cruz is a territory, divide 
land, according to their fitness for cultivation or 
for pasturage, and sell or lease them in tracts fit- 
ting the use. In this region one could purchase 
eight leagues and lease eight more adjoining, thus 
giving one approximately 100,000 acres of land. This 
is considered a tract of the right size for economi- 
cal management. One expert and well paid man- 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 99 

ager and one good central station with dips and 
shearing sheds could nicely take care of the sheep 
of 100,000 acres. Such a tract of land would carry 
from 16,000 to 50,000 sheep, depending on how well 
it was grassed and somewhat upon the shelter for 
winter. It would all be carefully fenced, provided 
with pastures and huts in the pastures for shep- 
herds and possibly with telephones to the huts, as 
is done at Chymen Aike. Mr. Scott says that to 
the northwest of the territory of San Julian there 
is yet much unoccupied land that is dry and thinly 
grassed, yet it is capable with windmills and wells 
of supporting many sheep. He made for me the 
following estimate of the cost of acquiring land in 
southern Patagonia. I may as well note, however, 
that since that time the laws have been modified: 

He applies for a tract of eight leagues, let us 
say, or about 50,000 acres. His first payment is to 
fee a lawyer in Buenos Aires, $1,600 (paper money). 
He then pays a rental in advance, $1,600. He must 
then fence the land, costing about $20,000. He then 
pays an official surveyor $1,600. Then for five 
years he pays an annual rental of $1,600 for his 
eight leagues. If he has complied with all of these 
provisions he can at the end of five years buy this 
land at a cost of $10,000 per league or $80,000 for 
his 50,000 acres. As these figures are in Argentine 
paper money, worth about 42% cents of our money, 
it will be seen that the land is sold for about 75 
cents an acre. It requires from three to six acres 
to keep a sheep a year. 



100 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

The government wisely prohibits a man from 
selling his land before he has been on it the re- 
quired time, and he must have perfected title. That 
makes it difficult for large companies to monopolize 
the land. The advantage to the estanciero of having 
a title to his land is important ; he fences, builds 
and goes about his business, knowing well that it 
is permanent. This is in sad contrast with the 
condition of our own sheepowners on the western 
ranges, for our laws do not permit leases of pasture 
lands nor the sale of them in tracts large enough to 
put our own sheep breeding on a business footing. 

Not every one in Patagonia becomes wealthy at 
sheep-farming. The winter of 1900 was a hard one, 
and Mr. Scott lost the third of his sheep. The winter 
of 1904 found him in the Gallegos district with 30,- 
000 sheep. Snow fell eighteen inches deep on the 
level, and 16,000 died. Mr. Scott says that the wild 
guanacos died sooner than the sheep, not having the 
instinct to paw away the snow from the grass. He 
is now farming in the San Julian country, a few 
hundred miles to the north, where it is higher and 
drier and his camp will carry only from 500 to 
1,000 sheep to the league. He finds on that dry 
land a considerable amount of Merino blood useful. 

ROMNEY SHEEP IN PATAGONIA. 

I have mentioned the large use of Eomney rams 
in Patagonia. It is a breed with a curious history. 
In Kent, England, there is a large tract of low rich 
land termed marsh. It is drained, as are the lands 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 101 

of Holland, and is not now wet. It is, however, 
marvelous grass land and is given over chiefly to 
pasture. In winter it is a bleak wind-swept country. 
On the marsh sheep live as they do in Patagonia; 
that is, out in the pastures all their lives, being 
seldom if ever fed. The sheep are not so large as 
the Lincolns and Cotswolds, are rather coarse- 
wooled and very hardy and active. There are sev- 
eral more highly finished and perfected breeds in 
England, but the Eomneys brought with them the 
qualities of endurance and the habit of getting a 
living from grass, be it lush or scant, so in this far 
southern region the breed supplants all others. The 
one rival is the Corriedale of New Zealand. 

The Corriedale is a hybrid sheep, resulting from 
crossing the Australian type of Merino with the 
Eomney, Lincoln, and Leicester; that is, different 
New Zealand breeders used different material in 
beginning the making of the hybrid Corriedale. 
Later the tj^pes were blended by interbreeding. Cor- 
riedales are smaller than Eomneys, with finer wool 
more densely set. They are favorites around Punta 
Arenas and the great Explotadora company uses 
many rams of this breeding. Sheep in South Am- 
erica are in layers, as one might say. At the bot- 
tom, where cold is most intense, and conditions are 
most severe, there are Corriedales and Eomneys, 
with Eomneys leading. Northward where pastures 
are more scanty and wool, not mutton, must be the 
chief consideration, one finds the large Merinos of 
Eambouillet type. Some hundreds of miles yet 



102 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

further northward one comes to the fat, clover- 
covered pastures of the agricultural provinces, with 
a climate that will permit oranges to grow, and here 
the Rambouillet, once universal, is being displaced 
by the stately Lincolns. 

PRICES OF WOOL AND MUTTON. 

What do South American estancieros receive for 
their wool and mutton? In 1911, the year of my 
visit, wools at Punta Arenas were bought at prices 
ranging from 14 to 20 cents per pound. To place 
such wool in New York would cost about 2 cents per 
pound, including freight, insurance and commis- 
sions. It is good wool — better in some ways than we 
produce, being cleaner and stronger. From the 
little port of Gallegos in 1910 was exported nearly 
6,500,000 pounds of wool, most of it going to Eng- 
land and Germany. We could obtain a lot of mutton 
from this region and perhaps some day we may be 
compelled to, if we need it, although it would seem 
that our own farmers might and ought to furnish 
us with all the meats that we need. At Rio Seco, 
on the straits, I secured figures showing the cost 
approximately of laying down prime lamb mutton 
in London. For 1911 the cost was a little under 
6 cents a pound. It is impossible for our farmers on 
their high-priced lands and with their dear labor 
and expensive costs of forage and grain to produce 
live mutton for what could be laid down in New 
York prime dressed and frozen Patagonian lambs. 

We may have to come to this, but I hope it will 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 103 

not be for many years. Our farmers are now for 
the first time in many years getting on their feet. 
Low prices for meats would put them back and stop 
farm development; the building of good country 
homes, the education of farm boys and girls and in 
the end nearly the entire country might suffer be- 
cause when the farmer has money to spend it makes 
the mill wheels to turn, and when he is hard up in- 
dustry languishes. 

A MINISTER'S WEARY PILGRIMAGES. 

One day I met Rev. J. Stanley Smith, a Church 
of England minister. He was a fine, manly, ath- 
letic, companionable man, and the story of his ad- 
ventures would make a book. His parish includes 
50,000 square miles. He has a church at Punta Are- 
nas and makes endless pilgrimages among the estan- 
cieros up and down the coast and far to the inte- 
rior. The parson goes out without purse or scrip or 
horse of his own; he is welcome everywhere, kept 
as long as he will stay and then is provided with 
fresh horses and sent on to the next estancia. At 
one place he will baptize a baby, at another he may 
(but this rarely) solemnize a marriage or he may ad- 
minister the sacrament. He cheers the lonely wom- 
en; rallies the men who may be inclined to be a bit 
careless in matters both temporal and spiritual; 
gathers the children about him and tells them sto- 
ries of the world and of his adventures. Altogether 
he is as sane, wholesome, inspiring a young man as 
any I know. 



104 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

Illustrating the difference in men, I later met 
a solemn, sourfaced young man, also a missionary 
but of a different sect, To him I spoke my ap- 
preciation of Kev. Smith. 

"Ah, yes, he may be all that, but I have my 
doubts as to the soundness of his theology," was the 
sour one's reply. What a fine rebuke the Master 
would have for that misguided and mistaught man, 
who puts theology before manliness, love and help- 
fulness. 

BACK IN THE ANDES. 

I longed exceedingly to go back to the foothills 
of the Andes. There one found magnificent scenery, 
with snow-capped mountains, forested slopes, hills 
waving in luxuriant grass, deep, clear lakes and 
springs and many little streams. The climate is 
better too back there, men say, but in winter there 
is danger of deep snow, and some men who have 
ventured to stock camps too high have lost every 
sheep in the winter. If one locates just right, not 
too near the mountains, not too remote, they say 
that he has fine grass and less violent wind. The 
difficulty is in getting down either wool or fat sheep 
from the rich pastures; the way is long and hard 
and there is no feed along it, I could not go back ; 
there was not time. In truth, the trail of my pil- 
grimage was haunted with unsatisfied desires ; there 
was never time to go into a thing so thoroughly as 
I wished. . 

One clay we were suddenly all excitement at Gal- 
legos ; the steamer Sarmiento was 1 coming down 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 105 

from the North. She might bring mail; she was a 
large ship; she would carry us away. She looked 
exceedingly good out in the harbor, usually so bare 
of ships. We were to go aboard in the evening and 
sail early in next morning. I paid my bill; I wish 
I knew just what the seiiora said as she bade me 
"actios." I know that she sent with me wishes for 
a safe journey and her regards to my seiiora and all 
of my folk of whom she had heard. She was a good 
little hard-working woman of old Spain, a mother 
of twelve and a grandmother of many. 

The steamer Sarmiento lay out a good way from 
the shore. We went down to the beach and waited 
in the darkness and chill until near midnight; then 
the crew appeared, whence I know not, took us on 
their backs, carried us to the boats and we rowed 
out to the ship. I was assuredly delighted to dis- 
lodge the cockroaches and stretch myself in my 
berth. Next morning we were yet in the harbor; 
more wool was coming out to us. At one o'clock we 
sailed, 24 hours later than we had expected. I 
simply mention this as a sample of Patagonian 
coastwise travel ; one goes aboard and has patience, 
if one has to borrow it. 

SANTA CRUZ. 

The Sarmiento proceeded northward, stopped at 
nearly every port to take on wool or to discharge 
cargo. Our first port was Santa Cruz. I quote from 
my journal: "What a blow! I have never seen a 
worse one, coming from off shore, and the air is 



106 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

full of dust. The wind blew so hard that it pulled 
the whistle cord and blew the whistle continuously 
until a sailor clambered up and made it fast. I 
learned from an observatory on shore that the wind 
blew at the rate of 90 kilometers an hour. We 
sounded the lead as we came in on high tide and 
approached till we had only six fathoms under us. 
As the tide falls here at least nine fathoms, it was 
interesting to know that where we were surrounded 
by huge waves would presently be a shingle bed 
only. It was interesting to see the landing. We 
have a steam launch about twenty feet long, built 
of steel and covered over much like a turtle. It is 
a powerful little launch. As we hear port the 
negro engineer gets up a head of steam, then as the 
anchor falls the launch is lifted up and swung over 
the rail, and lowered to the water, when she darts 
away, climbing splendidly over the great waves, 
plunging fearlessly down into the trough of the sea 
and climbing out again. I admire very much the 
plucky negro engineer and the steersman who stands 
with legs well braced and a tiller in hand, guiding 
his brave little craft. A big barge is let down from 
the forward deck; the launch takes it in tow; pas- 
sengers are let down, with their baggage and what- 
ever freight there may be, and the launch goes puff- 
ing away for the land. It looks perilous and, in- 
deed, three of these steel launches have been 
swamped by heavy seas and sank like lead during 
the past few months. The danger is if a big wave 
strikes the launch aft, where it is not decked over, 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 107 

one good wave breaking over her here and she sinks 
like an iron kettle. I saw a deed of daring, just 
now ; the launch brought out a barge laden with wool 
bales and the wind and waves were too much for 
her; she could not hold it. After a hard struggle 
she got under the lee of the ship and lines were 
made fast to the barge. The sailors worked like 
heroes, drenched with the icy water, flattened .by 
the furious wind. One bale went adrift, a loss, of 
more than $100, and all the bales were soaked. 

11 Santa Cruz is a small village of iron houses 
with red roofs. It also has a church. It is lucky 
that these furious winds usually blow from off 
shore. It is a curious thought that there is not in 
all lower Patagonia one village away from the sea 
coast, and I question whether there will be for many 
years to come. 

DEINKING "MATE." 

"March 9: One of our passengers is a young 
Argentine of Spanish blood, perhaps tinged with 
Indian. He has exceedingly black hair and a black 
mustache that is beautifully curled, a handsome, 
eager face and the finest dark, flashing eyes that I 
have ever seen. Mentally I have dubbed him "the 
revolutionist"; he is fiery; his gestures are ani- 
mated and even daring. He is to be chief of police 
somewhere along this coast, and is with us. To- 
gether we struggle with language; he tries to read 
English and I Spanish. I flatter myself that I read 
Spanish better than he reads English. Last night 



108 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

he invited me to ' ' tome mate ' ' or take native Para- 
guayan tea with him in his room, which I did, in 
company with other men. Taking mate is an im- 
portant function in Argentina ; in truth, in all of 
South America. You have a small, flat gourd, which 
you fill half full of the dried mate leaves (it is 
pronounced ma-ta) and then pour in hot water. 
Through a silver tube you suck the tea, then hand 
it to a neighbor, who sucks more, and so on around 
the circle, filling the gourd with hot water from time 
to time. The mate does not seem to lose its strength 
with the dilution. All Argentines are enthusiastic 
over the healthful qualities of mate. To me it 
seemed only a kind of tea of unusual strength; it 
made me dream astonishing dreams, so I did not 
persist in its use. One day we landed our elegant, 
fiery young Spanish man at his village, a most for- 
lorn assemblage of iron huts and none too many of 
them. He looked a bit aghast, but tried to smile and 
be brave about it. I do not think that he has ever 
before been far from the cafes and the sehoritas. 
No doubt he was sent down here to pay some politi- 
cal debt; a new administration has come in." 

It is astonishing, almost incredible, how much 
mate is used in South America. One sees great bul- 
lock carts going into the interior laden with sup- 
plies for the estancias. Far more than half the 
provisions would be of mate, in great cylindrical 
packages of bull hide, with the hair on. The peons 
(laborers) are nearly carnivorous in their diet; mut- 
ton, mate and a few hard biscuits form their daily 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 109 

food. I have seen peons on an estancia sit and drink 
mate for two hours in the cool of the morning. It 
seems not to harm them, although it is a decided 
stimulant — more than is tea. Some have complained 
to me that they felt the worse for drinking over- 
much mate ; travelers, however, in remote parts who 
can not get bread or vegetables and must live chief- 
ly on meat, report that mate is under such condi- 
tions beneficial in its effect. 

SENOR BEHR AGAIN. 

The lower Patagonian coast is alive with sea 
birds, which are curious and interesting to see. At 
Santa Cruz came aboard my young friend, Senor 
Behr, who had made a journey to his father's es- 
tancia and was returning. He had found things in 
good condition; it is a new estancia and they are 
fencing and building. On his way out, a journey 
of some ninety miles, he one morning missed his 
horses, and got a late start. Night overtook him 
far out on the plain; he lay down on the earth and 
covered himself with his poncho, or cloak. For- 
tunately he had also a guanaco skin robe or quilt ; 
else he might have perished of cold. It was a very 
long night, said Senor Behr, with the wind tugging 
at his covering and his teeth chattering with cold. 
This was only the 10th of March, equivalent to our 
Sept. 10. 

One clay we lay at anchor all day long, wait- 
ing for the tide to be right to let us in to the port 
of San Julian. After discharging passengers there 



110 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

we bore away for Deseado, the Port Desire of Dar- 
win. As we proceeded northward the coast rose into 
higher plateaus, all of the same bare, desolate na- 
ture — a "damned and desolate coast," as Charles 
Darwin termed it. Indeed, the country for hun- 
dreds of miles here would be of no use were it not 
that sheep thrive on its dry but moderately grassy 
plains. There are wild ostriches and guanacos in 
plenty. Darwin should have foreseen that where 
they thrive sheep could follow. Steadily, as we 
proceeded northward, the desert character of the 
country increased, there was less rain and snow, 
more desert shrubs, less grass and no danger of 
sheep dying from being overcome with snow in the 
winter. 

PORT DESEADO. 

Eagerly we looked forward to reaching De- 
seado. Many years ago there had been planted by 
its fine harbor a Spanish colony. The remains of 
the solidly built stone buildings yet were there. The 
desert nature of the back country and the Indians 
drove away the colonists. They left behind them, 
so rumor said, a tree. That tree yet existed and 
could be seen. From my journal : 

"The harbor of Deseado is rock-bound like the 
harbors of the Island of Jersey. The water is clear 
and lovely; above the low cliffs perched a village 
of galvanized iron houses, very picturesque. A 
rocky canon came down here and a foot-path led up 
it ; I walked far until I found the tree. It is a lom- 
bardy poplar, fresh and green, but not very old. 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING HI 

There were sweet cherry trees here, too, sheltered 
from the wind. They seemed to be quite wild and 
growing naturally — the only trees within some 
hundreds of miles, but it is evident that they would 
grow here, with moisture and wind protection. This 
is the terminus of the state railway line, a new 
project now under construction. The work thus 
far seems substantially done. How good it seemed 
to see a railway, with cars, locomotives and all that. 
The village is interesting and developing rapidly. 
Englishmen are opening up sheep-farms along the 
new line. One English estanciero, Digby Grist, told 
me that he had lived in Australia and considered 
this a safer country for sheep, as there are here no 
continued drouths. He says that the climate at 
his estancia, not far above Deseado, is sometimes 
almost tropical and that in the desert shrubs grow 
in the spring many very lovely wild flowers. Sheep 
here eat the bush more than they do grass, for 
grass is rather in scant supply." 

The scheme of the government was to build this 
railway clear into the back country by the Andes, 
and then northward to connect with the other rail- 
way systems of Argentina. One may doubt the 
line's paying well, as there is so little agriculture 
possible. There are only a few streams and no 
agriculture is possible without irrigation. How- 
ever through the aid of the railway the government 
is selling land rapidly. We took on quite a number 
of passengers at Deseado, -many of them capitalists 
of the north country who had come to look at land. 



112 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

They were not so much caring to embark in stock- 
raising as they were hoping to share in the enormous 
increase in land values that have made many men 
rich in the North. Here, alas, I fear they are fore- 
doomed to disappointment. The lands of the North 
need no irrigation; they are exceedingly rich, and 
need only the tickling of the plow and seed to throw 
out bounteous harvests. Can this cold southern 
desert repeat the performance of the northern fer- 
tile plain? Deseado is in the latitude of Seattle and 
Duluth and has a reputed climate like that of Santa 
Fe, New Mexico. I imagine it has sometimes pretty 
cold winters, however, and there is no month in the 
year when it may not freeze if a wind blows per- 
sistently from the south. 

Wind is the bane of Patagonia. It blows nearly 
every day from the land to the sea and often with 
terrific force. In riding horseback across the plains 
my horse and I had to lean at a considerable angle 
against the wind and sand, and small pebbles would 
strike my face and nearly blind me. Without its 
wind, it would have a magnificent climate ; as it is 
I suppose it is the most healthful climate in the 
world. It is too dry and too sunny for germs. The 
dead horses in the streets of Gallegos simply lie 
there, flattened by the wheels of the bullock carts, 
until they are worn out and were not offensive to 
the Galleganos. 

Always, I think, will Patagonia be a land of dry 
plains, brushy or grassy, as one chances to find it, 
with sheep and, in sheltered valleys where there is 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 113 

chance for irrigation, alfalfa. That marvelons 
clover is now growing luxuriantly on Rio Chico near 
the port of Santa Cruz. It was interesting to note 
that as we proceeded northward from the straits 
we found first the Roniney sheep kept because they 
produced such good wool and with it fine mutton; 
then as we came on and the rainfall became less 
and the pastures more scanty we found men using 
admixtures of Merino and Romney blood. Now 
at Deseado Merinos are chiefly in use. 

Rio Santa Cruz is a great river, coming down 
from the Andes. Darwin with the ship's boats 
tried unsuccessfully -to explore it to its source, turn- 
ing back when he was in sight of the Cordilleras. 
Had he gone a little higher he would have come to a 
pastoral paradise, with grass, trees, hills and val- 
leys and a marvelously beautiful lake, Lago Ar- 
gentino. The river is navigable but the current is 
swift and there are jagged rocks in its bed. While 
I was in the country navigation was begun by 
means of a powerful gasoline boat. With naviga- 
tion a marvelous and beautiful country will be 
opened and further streams of beef, mutton and 
wool will flow to Europe and perhaps to North Am- 
erica. This seems ultimately inevitable. 

ALONG THE COAST OF ARGENTINA. 

From my note book I quote: "As I progress" 
northward along the coast of Patagonia I am more 
and more impressed with the immense stretch of 
country it presents. I learn, too, that while in the 



114 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

region close to the Straits of Magellan the land is 
now all taken and most of it is fully stocked and 
even overstocked, yet here in the more northern 
parts is a vast amount of unoccupied land, all good 
sheep land, though having capacity of only 800 to 
1,000 head per league (nearly 6,250 acres). The as- 
pect of the country remains strikingly similar, 
though there are here and there high parts, like our 
buttes or mesas of the West, but nowhere true 
mountains east of the Cordilleras. Thus far I have 
seen no trees save a few stunted ones in canons. 
Thus far almost all the settlement has been by 
Englishmen, and where the Argentines own land 
they quite often employ English managers, who have 
the training and capacity for the constructive work 
that is to be done. 

"The weather seems most capricious; at one 
hour warm and sunny, again tempestuous and cold 
as ice. I am now in the region of a government 
railway-building enterprise. There is absolutely no 
agriculture possible here without irrigation, which 
is today impossible, though no doubt some day the 
rivers will some of them be turned out of their beds 
and alfalfa be grown. The soil everywhere shows 
evidence of having in comparatively recent times 
been under the sea; it is almost uniformly stony or 
gravelly, but it is probably quite fertile, with water. 
'Traveling leisurely along the coast by ship gives 
one an opportunity to meet the estancieros and se- 
cure useful information. I wish to get down here 
the story of a Patagonian pioneer, Seiior Auguste 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 115 

Guillaume, one of the most interesting figures in the 
early history of the country. 

A PATAGONIAN PIONEER. 

"In 1873 Senor Guillaume first crossed Pata- 
gonia, going from Punta Arenas north to Golfo San 
Jorge, returning to Punta Arenas. He saw few In- 
dians on this journey; in fact, the Indians avoided 
the coast country, as it was usually without water 
for themselves or their horses, and the pasturage 
is far better westward toward the Cordilleras, 
where the rainfall is more abundant. In 1880 Senor 
Guillaume took sheep south from the province of 
Rio Negro to Rio Coyle, not far from Gallegos. The 
journey took one year. The sheep were grade Mer- 
inos. For- some years he lived on the Coyle, with 
his sheep, which throve. In 1904, the year of the 
hard winter, he had 14,000 sheep. Of these 2,000 
died and 5,000 wandered, away as the snow in drifts 
was higher than the fences. He never recovered any 
of the 5,000, although he learned that some of them 
reached Lago Argentino, 200 miles away. 

"Senor Guillaume is now located near Rio San- 
ta Cruz. On 16 leagues (about 100,000 acres) of 
land he keeps 20,000 sheep. The land is fenced and 
divided into seven pastures. His ewes are of Rom- 
ney type, mixed with Rambouillet-Merino. He uses 
Rambouillet rams. His flock has averaged 6.6 
pounds. He sold his last clip for $10.50, or nearly 
exactly 21 cents per pound, American money. The 
wool clip realized him gross $27,720, American 



116 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

money. The present wool clip will scarcely realize 
so much as that, since wool now is very much lower 
in price than it was then. 

"The expenses on this estancia are light. In 
busy season ten men are employed, usually but 
four, whose wages are $70 to $80 per month, Ar- 
gentine paper (worth 44 cents in gold). They have 
meat furnished, but buy their food in addition. The 
land cost Seiior Guillaume $10,000 in Argentine 
money per league ($4,400 in gold) or $35,000 gold 
for the 8 leagues. (He leases eight leagues). What 
it cost to fence and stock I could not ascertain. It 
seems evident, however, that this is a very profitable 
estancia. Seiior Guillaume says that by far the best 
grass is west near the Cordilleras, but the cost of 
getting down the wool from there, a distance of 
eighty to 100 leagues, is too much to leave a 
good profit. The camps near the Cordilleras he also 
considers dangerous because of snows in winter, 
though many of them could cut and stack hay. He 
says that the territory of Santa Cruz is far from 
being stocked, and that it could easily carry many 
thousands more sheep than at present, his exact 
term being "millions" more, which is evidently 
careless speaking. He says the government does 
not grant land freely enough to permit the most 
rapid settlement; that is, the government reserves 
the best land for purposes of colonization instead 
of granting it to sheep-farmers at the standard price 
of $10,000 per league of 6,250 acres ($4,250 Ameri- 
can money). 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 117 

''March 12: This day has been a lovely day, 
after a night of storm. We have anchored a mile 
off shore (as we often do), and are taking on wool 
all day long by means of lighters and a small steam 
launch that we carry with us. We are now in the 
territory of Chubut, As we come northward the 
climate is more and more marked by aridity. The 
port of Rivadavia is the terminus of a new railway 
being built by the government. It is typical of the 
world-hunger for land and its products that there 
should be building here a railway, for the land near 
the coast is rough and barren. It is much like the 
dry parts of Arizona, with thorny shrubs, salt or 
bitter shrubs and thin, small grass beneath. I went 
a distance into the country and to a mountaintop, 
whence I could see for many miles. The interior, 
however, is a moister land than I explored along the 
coast. One finds many climatic peculiarities in this 
country that are difficult to explain. 

"Here we loaded much wool in sacks in the man- 
ner of North America, whereas heretofore all of it 
has been baled in heavy, close bales. Near here is 
a colony of Boer farmers, of whom I hear various 
conflicting reports. It is evident that some of them 
are thriving. They are engaged in sheep-farming 
and in agriculture by irrigation. In truth, all that 
can be done with the land from here to Cape Horn 
is to keep sheep on it, and for that it is one of the 
best regions that I have ever seen, although parts 
of it require a great deal of land per sheep, say in 
the poorer parts eight to ten acres to one sheep. 



118 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

Quite commonly 1,000 head are put to the league of 
6,250 acres." 

SHEEP BREEDING IN SANTA CRUZ. 

I passed from the territory of Santa Cruz to 
the territory of Chubut. I gave but a most super- 
ficial study to the land and work of Santa Cruz, 
which was unavoidable in so limited a time. From 
all the evidence I could get and from the best men 
I gathered that the sheep breeding industry is ca- 
pable of much expansion in Santa Cruz ; that only 
the southern end is fully stocked, leaving the mid- 
dle and drier parts and the western sections near- 
ly bare of sheep, and that there can be but little 
doubt that there will be seen presently a consider- 
able increase in the numbers of sheep and the out- 
put of wool in this region. Without railways it is 
difficult to see how sheep can get to the coast from 
the richest mutton-making regions of the Cordil- 
leras. Nevertheless, it is evident that there will 
be likewise a large increase in the output of canned 
mutton and some development of frozen mutton as 
well. Probably each of these products will soon be 
at least doubled. There can be no question that 
sheep owners in Santa Cruz are making large profits. 
These are usually sent out of the country, to Eng- 
land, Scotland or Buenos Aires. No one, apparent- 
ly, cares to make a home in this bleak, half -barren, 
wind-swept land. 

According to the census of 1908, there were in 
Santa Cruz more than 2,000,000 sheep. They have 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 119 

probably doubled in number since then, and there 
is doubtless room for 5,000,000. If the region along 
the Cordilleras can be opened up by railway or navi- 
gation, and if alfalfa comes along the rivers to help 
out the scanty grazing, the sheep population will 
vastly expand. Chubut, the territory lying next 
north, had in 1908 a few more than 2,000,000 sheep. 
Here, as we shall see, the numbers also increase. It 
is typical of the reaching out of man to the com- 
mand of all the remote corners of earth that these 
deserts should be fenced, watered and then peopled 
.with sheep, the wool of which goes to clothe men in 
many northern lands. Moreover, the lamb roasts 
produced here go to grace many a dinner table from 
Edinburgh to Cornwall. As in other parts of South 
America, the possibilities for sheep-raising are al- 
most unlimited. 

AT RIVADAVIA. 

I quote from my journal: "I am having a great 
time studying Espanol. A sehorita on the ship 
hears me read and says that I read very well. I 
now know a great many words by sight, but I do 
not recognize them when some one repeats them to 
me, nor can I get hold of them if I wish to use them. 
My respect for a baby increases vastly. Think how 
it gets hold of a language ; in two years it has mas- 
tered it, and all that time has never given it a mo- 
ment's study and has had ample time for pla} 7 ". I 
had a happy time ashore at Rivadavia. I climbed 
a high, steep mountain to get a view of the coun- 



120 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

try, all a waste of hills and table lands, covered with 
brush for the most part with some little yellow grass 
between the shrubs. Giant clam or oyster shells 
abound all over the hills. Darwin says the coast 
emerged lately from the sea. 'Lately' with scien 
lists means a million of years, more or less. This 
is the terminus of another government railway, 
wherefore it is a busy place. The poor government 
had a bit of hard luck here. Drilling wells for a 
water supply, it found only petroleum. Think of 
finding thick, nasty petroleum when dying of thirst. 

"As usual we anchored out a mile from the beach, 
and went in on the steam launch. It is great fun 
riding on the old tea kettle, but one has the lurk- 
ing memory that one wave striking her from aft 
would fill her deep enough to put out her fires and 
two waves would send her to the bottom like lead. 
Our launch draws a chatta or barge to be laden with 
wool, and we can ride in that, if we fear the launch. 
The crew of the chatta is composed of unreformed 
pirates. The men are delighted to see us go ashore; 
when we return they do not put up a plank for us 
to walk over to the chatta, but pick us up and car- 
ry us on their shoulders, though the distance may 
be no more than three steps. For this service they 
expect a dollar. The ship's mate grins to see this 
robbery and even permitted the same extortion to 
be practiced upon a lot of Italian laborers coming 
on to the ship. 

"My heart is strangely light, every nerve and 
muscle tingling. We are approaching Madryn, a 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 121 

port in Chubut, where I leave the Sarmiento and 
hope to receive letters from home." 

PORT MADRYN. 

"March 14: I am in a pleasant room ashore, 
in the English hotel, looking out across a glorious 
expanse of water, glittering in the warm sun. A 
long iron pier reaches out into the bay; it is too 
big really to be called a harbor, and on the pier 
glides a shining, silent little English locomotive, 
pushing out cars of wheat, hides or wool. The Sar- 
miento is loading; I leave her and her cockroaches 
gladly for dry land again. It is truly a dry land. 
The desert reaches from here to the Andes; one 
sees only shrubs, fine, yellow grass in bunches and 
desert weeds. Some of these desert shrubs are so 
pretty that people allow them to remain in their 
dooryards. Prom here runs a railway to the val- 
ley of the Chubut River, perhaps 30 miles, and on 
the Chubut is a colony of Welsh people who have 
been here for many years. Think of it, a short rail- 
way ride, then a neat Welsh village, embowered in 
trees and flowers, a beautiful green valley with 
sweet-smelling alfalfa meadows and orchards hang- 
ing full of yellow and red apples. I am impatient 
to get over, but the train does not run today. We 
can know when they mean to run the train, because 
they will run up a flag on a mast by the tiny station. 
I am now in the latitude of Buffalo, N. Y. It seems 
good to get in familiar latitudes again. 

"In a tiny fruit shop I found splendid grapes 



122 



IN FOREIGN FIELDS 



from Chubut; they are like those of California — 
big, black, meaty grapes. Flies ! More flies ! How 
homelike it all is. I do not recall seeing a fly in 
the South. The town waterworks is a curious con- 
trivance. Men take barrels and run rods through 
their heads to form an axle, then attach shafts and 
with ponies roll the barrels through the streets. 
The source of supply is a well and windmill, a good 




PANORAMA OF PUERTO MADRYN, 

North American Aermotor mill, in the suburbs. 
Here Dr. Eichlet met his seiiora and his little boy. 
The seiiora is a strikingly handsome woman. To- 
gether we walked in the evening on the beach which 
was strewn with pretty shells. I learned that I 
could understand the sehora's Spanish very much 
better than I could the doctor's. It is a proverb 
very trite and true that if you would learn a Ian- 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 



123 



guage a woman must teach it to you, but he would 
be a daring man who would presume to learn much 
of it from the senora of a South American. How- 
ever, the doctor has been very kind. He knows the 
habits of the English-speaking people, and how we 
are proud of our wives and glad to exhibit them to 
our friends, and to have them appreciated. It is 
not so in South America, where one may know a 




CHUBUT, ARGENTINA, SOUTH AMERICA. 

man for years without meeting or hearing of his 
wife. 

"I was especially interested in the lad. He is 
five years of age, sturdy, quick as lightning, impul- 
sive, daring and intelligent. It is a great race. Give 
it proper education and training. Perhaps where 
we excel is in self-control, which is a thing not much 
taught in South America. The lad and I played 



124 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

with the waves, running clown behind them and flee- 
ing in front of them. They were gentle waves to- 
day. It is wonderful how one grows to need the 
companionship of children when one is long de- 
prived of them. It has been a happy afternoon with 
the modest, demure yet responsive senora and her 
husband and their gay, laughing child. 

"My letters have not come; no mail has reached 
here for two weeks, so I have hopes. The consul 
telegraphs me, 'Cinco cartes mas por correo hoy,' 
which is easily translated to mean that he has sent 
me five more letters today. Good ! I will read them 
iu my imagination for a few days and then in real- 
ity. 

A TYPICAL RANCH. 

"March 15: Today I visited the estancia of the 
Port Madryn Argentine Co., Ltd., of which H. C. 
H. James is manager. It is situated along the rail- 
way leading out from Madryn. There are here 
twenty-six leagues (162,500 acres) of land which 
Mr. James believes will carry nicely 35,000 sheep, 
or about one sheep to 4?y 2 acres. He has now on 
the land 22,000 sheep. They are of mixed Romney 
arid Merino blood. He is using grade Rambouillet 
rams. The sheep shore 5y 2 pounds of wool per head 
at the last shearing, but it was of only about ten 
months' growth, or 121,000 pounds. The wool is 
unsold in Antwerp. In general the wools of this 
part of Chubut are of second quality only, and are 
sandy and dirty. Fifteen men are employed ou the 
estancia, receiving $60 per month in Argentine 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 



125 





HOME OF AN ESTANCIERO IN CHUBUT, ARGENTINA. 




HAULING IN PELTS. 



126 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

money. Some of the men are employed in butcher- 
ing sheep for the market. The enterprise here de- 
cribed is interesting; it is an effort to establish a 
model sheep run on this type of desert range. It 
is a new venture. 

"The rainfall on the coast of Chubut is about 
6y 2 inches. The range is covered with small brush 
resembling what one sees in Texas and Arizona. 
There is not much grass, but some of the useful al- 
filiaria, which we have in California. The sheep 
eat a good deal of brush. I saw a flock of wethers 
which to my surprise were quite fat. One was 
killled to show me the inside fat which was con- 
siderable, though less than one would see in a wether 
from a good range in North America. There is no 
canning factory or freezing plant north of San 
Julian. There is evidently room for a canning fac- 
tory here. It is interesting to know that fencing 
and stocking are going on quite rapidly and that 
much wool is destined subsequently to originate 
here. The land seems hardly worth the price, 
$4,400 in gold for 6,250 acres, yet Mr. James thinks 
a league will support here more than 1,000 sheep. 
Scab is prevalent, and there are few dipping plants. 
Water must all be pumped from deep wells by 
American windmills, costing about $1,250 each 
(gold) for mill and well." 

It was truly an interesting ride out to Mr. James' 
headquarters, through desert scrub and brush that, 
reminded one of southern Texas, only the brush is 
seldom more than shoulder high. His house was 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 127 

hidden down between the sand dunes, for there he 
has some shelter from the winds and gets good, 
fresh water in wells sunk in the sand. He has irri- 
gation from his well and so has a few flowers and 
a tiny tree. All this is primitive and poor, but in- 
teresting because in the desert. 

Mr. James is a type of the alert, efficient Eng- 
lishman. He has been in South America for many 
years. He rides well and in snowy white riding 
breeches is a contrast with an Arizona ranch fore- 
man. Of course his house was cozy inside. Trust 
an English colonial woman for that, and his tele- 
phone and office seemed to link one to the world, 
although the telephone goes mainly to his shep- 
herds' huts. I was astonished to see how fat his 
sheep were, subsisting chiefly on bush. This is the 
land of underground fence posts. One gives an or- 
der causally, thus: "Juan, take the shovel and axe 
and go out and dig up some posts; we must repair 
the fence in the north pasture," and Juan unsmil- 
ingly goes and unearths them. The "post is a big 
root or underground stem, and its top a mere wil- 
lowy shrub. The desert is alive with small creatures 
that closely resemble guinea pigs; they are small 
rodents called the "tuco-tuco." They are tame and 
gentle; children play with them as they do with 
guinea pigs. There are yet many ostriches; they 
are wild and difficult to shoot, as are the guanacos, 
which get more wary year by year, but men must 
kill them, as they are worthless and not only con- 
sume feed but break fencer*. 



128 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

At the hotel there were some interesting young 
men who were fencing np land that they had bought 
in the interior. They are putting down windmills 
and getting ready for sheep. It was good to see 
efficient American windmills from Chicago, merrily 
whirling in the wind and raising water from the 
depths of the sands. Madryn will no doubt some 
day be quite an important city, as it has a vast har- 
bor, and is the only entry port for a region as large 
as Wyoming. It must first get a supply of water. 
This can easily be pumped from the Rio Chubut. 
In place of the tin huts of Madryn, why may we 
not expect to see a few sky-scrapers some day? 
Denver has them; so has Cheyenne. At any rate, 
the country is potentially capable of them. 

There is in Chubut a North American whom I 
would like to meet — a Mr. Crocker, who is easily 
king among men in Patagonia. He is a freighter 
and brings down wool from ttte Andes. Ordinarily, 
South American boyeros or freighters are a disrep- 
utable lot, and their animals are on the verge of 
starvation; their men are undisciplined. Our coun- 
tryman, who I think is a Texan, comes down to the 
port with forty wagons laden with wool, all of them 
big Studebaker wagons, and each wagon in good 
repair and drawn by eight fine, well-fed, strong 
mules. When he comes in it is as when a well dis- 
ciplined army comes — all orderly and business-like. 
His men are proud to work for him. I hear many 
tales of this man, and regret that he was 350 miles 
inland when I was in his country. 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 129 

"March 15: Trelew is the principal town of 
Chubut. I have had a ride on a South American 
railway train, my first experience. It was a mixed 
train — really a freight train to which was attached 
one passenger car about as large as a small street 
car, with seats along the side, as in some of our 
street cars, and English windows that lower in 
pockets and lift . with straps. The doctor, .his 
seiiora, two men and myself made up the passenger 
list. The tiny locomotive drew us slowly across 
the forty miles of desert. How hot and dusty it 
was. All the way it was a true desert, with stunted, 
scattered brush and- thin grass beneath and between, 
in a few places seeming almost to cover the ground. 
But there is no describing a desert. 

"Occasionally we passed a good American wind- 
mill, a galvanized iron tank and a tin shepherd's 
hut, and here and there we saw sheep grazing. They 
were mainly of Rambouillet-Merino type, with some 
admixture of Eomney or Lincoln blood. There is 
not a house for railway laborers on the forty miles 
— probably because there was no water for men, and 
the railway company has not yet put down wells. 
We saw a few ostriches, which were not much fright- 
ened by our train, yet they ran through the brush. 
After three hours of this journeying, which, by the 
way, was all of it through the estancia managed by 
Mr. James, we came out on the edge of a low pla- 
teau; a valley lay below us and also, to my joy, lines 
of stately green poplars, the smooth velvety green- 
ness of alfalfa meadows, the yellow of ripe wheat 



130 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

and the valley of Chubut. It reminded me of the 
valleys of Utah. 

TRELEW AND THE WELSH COLONY. 

"We drew up at a neat station, Trelew, the prin- 
cipal town of the territory of Chubut, the metropo- 
lis of the colony of the Welsh. But what was wrong? 
Will one never find things as one had dreamed they 
would be? I had pictured here a transplanted Welsh 
village, with picturesque cottages, overgrown with 
roses and creeping vines, its narrow streets densely 
shaded by green trees that forever drew sustenance 
from limpid streams flowing at their feet, as once 
one saw in the charming villages of Utah. Instead, 
what did I see? A typically Spanish town, with its 
plastered houses set flush with the sidewalks, bare of 
ornament or architectural grace, with hot, glary, 
dusty streets and not one tree shading them. True, 
there were a few houses of English village architec- 
ture. For these I was devoutly grateful, yet they 
were the exception. The village lies on a little pla- 
teau, slightly above the valley. Below it is an irrigat- 
ing canal where picturesque oxen water after their 
long journey from the Cordilleras. Across the irri- 
gating canal is a lot of hideous waste land, black and 
no doubt rich, yet unwatered and untilled. Beyond 
that are farms and trees and orchards. 

"To comprehend it all one must learn something 
of the history of Chubut. It lies in a pleasant lati- 
tude, about the same as that of Rochester, N. Y. It 
has a fine climate, cool but not cold, although some- 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 131 

what subject to late spring frosts. Its winter cli- 
mate is so mild that there is not often skating at 
Trelow. If I were to go to South America to se- 
lect a home where I could reproduce things with 
which I might be familiar in England or the United 
States, surely Chubut would be the place that I 
should visit. In Wales there has long been an old 
prophecy that some day in Patagonia there should 
arise a Welsh nation. Next came a law in Eng- 
land that all children should learn the English lan- 
guage in the schools. Wales had never been truly 
conquered by the English, for a large part of the 
people had retained their truly unspeakable lan- 
guage. It cut them to the quick to think of hav- 
ing their children taught English, so a movement 
arose to emigrate to Patagonia and there found 
the new Welsh nation, the cornerstone of which 
should be godliness and one of the ornaments the 
marvelous language of Wales. 

''Lewis Jones led the colonists, the first coming 
in 1865. They came like children, trusting, hope- 
ful, ignorant of conditions. What would men of 
Wales know of a desert and the manner of life 
adapted to the desert? Few of them had money, 
and as to many their chief possessions were chil- 
dren and a devout religious instinct and training. 
Just why they did not at once return on seeing this 
desolate land I do not know; perhaps because the 
captain would not take them back free and they had 
no money. At first they lived in caves, near the 
sea ; then they moved to the valley of the river and 



132 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

sowed wheat. It is said tliat they would have died 
of starvation had they not been fed for a time by 
kind-hearted Indians. Later the Argentine govern- 
ment, delighted to have settlement made in Pata- 
gonia, sent them food. Thus they lived through a 
few dreadfully lean and hungry years. They built 
a little city which they called Rawson, near the 
mouth of the river. It was then possible to sail a 
ship to Rawson. Ships drew less water then than 
they draw today. Now no more ships touch there 
because of a bar at the mouth of the river, and be- 
cause the water is too shallow in the river itself. 

"After a time these stubborn Welsh people 
learned that it was not merely an accidental 'dry 
spell' that had overtaken them on Rio Chubut, but 
that drouth was the normal thing. Some one led 
the way, and a canal was dug to lead the water from 
the river to the land. Watered, it produced wheat 
abundantly, also barley, clover, garden stuff, ap- 
ples, grapes and other fruits. Settlement spread 
up the river for more than thirty miles. There was 
plenty in Chubut. Many little churches stood in 
the valley. They were built of brick, either burned 
or sun-dried. The population was almost solidly 
Welsh. Few indeed could speak English. Far re- 
mote were the Spanish settlements to the north, and 
the colonists dreamed that they would be unmo- 
lested ; that they would never have to own allegiance 
to Argentina, even if that country had fed them. 
Argentines have their faults, but a lack of patriot- 
ism is not one of them. 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 133 

"A Spanish governor was sent to rule over 
Clmbut. He endeavored to enforce certain unob- 
served laws. One was that all young men must as- 
semble and practice military drill on Sunday. This 
law was abhorrent to the Sunday-observing Welsh 
people. Another law was that they must be taught 
in schools in the Spanish tongue. This was the last 
straw. The Welshmen abhorred the whole scheme 
and with bitterness sought eagerly to have England 
intervene — perhaps to annex the land. England 
once had a claim on Patagonia, but relinquished it, 
possibly on the damning testimony of Charles Dar- 
win, and refused now to trespass on rights admit- 
tedly Argentina's, so the Welshmen had to submit 
with what grace they could. Some left the colony; 
some remained and learned that after all Spanish 
is a pretty language, and I think the rule of Sunday 
drill has been abolished. Today the grand-daughter 
of one of the original colonists is the principal of 
the public schools of Trelew and teaches in the 
Spanish tongue." 

THE GALENSES AND THEIR CALAMITY. 

But the Spaniards were the least of the Welsh- 
men's troubles, after all, though they seemed a se- 
rious enough trial at the time. The Spaniards mis- 
name the Welsh, calling them "Galenses." So far 
as I could see, they were not at all Galenses either, 
but just ordinary Welshmen. They do not change 
much, be they born in the old world or the new. I 
remonstrated with my interpreter for thus misnam- 



134 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

ing the poor, inoffensive Welshmen, but he did not 
understand me, and returned, in amazement, "But 
seiior, they are Galenses." That settled it; I could 
not argue against him. 

The real, sure and terrible troubles of the poor 
Welsh colonists came from the behavior of the 
Chubut River. It is a long river, rising in the An- 
des and flowing 350 miles through the desert, It is 
smallish in the dry season ; one can ford it in many 
places then. In the Andes and along their base, 
there is a great snowy region where the climate is 
changeable, as it is elsewhere, so that during some 
winters the snow piles high on the hills. When the 
snow melts away there may be trouble all the way 
down the valley. In thirty-seven years there have 
been four terrible overflows, one of which remained 
over much of the land for eight months. These 
floods swept away homes and churches, washed 
great channels through the fields, destroyed orch- 
ards and naturally discouraged the people. Nature 
down there is not tame, gentle or manageable, as 
in Wales or England. It will require years of strug- 
gle to successfully subdue her. 

THE TERRITORY OF CHUBUT. 

The territory of Chubut is one of the larger di- 
visions of Argentina, situated south of parallel 42. 
It is roughly speaking about 300 miles from north 
to south, with an average breadth of about 310 
miles. It contains approximately 930,000 square 
miles, is a little larger than the state of Oregon 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 135 

and has about the same area as Great Britain, with- 
out Ireland. Chubut lies south of the maize-grow- 
ing regions of Argentina. As a matter of fact, 
there is hardly any agriculture practiced there, ex- 
cepting farming by irrigation along the Chubut 
River, where maize does not ripen well. However, 
the grapes of Europe ripen beautifully. The sum- 
mers are made up of bright, rather hot days with 
cool nights; the winters are mild with little snow 
and seldom ice enough for skating at Trelew, on the 
Chubut River. The country may some day be dis- 
tinguished for the production of fruit. 

The coast regions of Chubut are arid, the rain- 
fall being about 6 inches and in some years there is 
far less rain than that; in fact, there are entire 
years when there is hardly any rainfall at all. As 
a consequence, vegetation assumes the characteris- 
tics of arid regions, with many shrubs resistant to 
drouth, with some thorny species and some cacti, 
ami under and between the shrubs some little 
grasses. There is little or no water on the surface. 
Wells are often as deep as 150 to 300 feet. There 
are yet no well-drilling or boring machines in oper- 
ation; hence the procuring of water is a costly en- 
terprise, beyond the means of the ordinary man. 
The ranges are so thinly grassed that ordinarily a 
league of land will support but 1,000 sheep, though 
there are estancias where 1,250 or even 1,500 are 
kept per league. In the west as many as 4,000 may 
be run on a league. The sheep consume much be- 
side grass ; they nibble the brush and while ordina- 



136 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

rily tliey do not become very fat they keep in good 
thriving condition on such forage. 

FARMING ALONG THE CHUBUT RIVER. 

The Chubut River rises in the Andes mountains 
and flows through the entire length of the territory. 
Its upper reaches are through narrow valleys, un- 
tilled and often untillable. Its lower valley is from 
two to ten miles or more wide. The soil is black, 
friable and crumbling of its own accord into loose 
earth, not much afflicted with excess of alkalies and 
very rich and productive. It is the most souther- 
ly of the irrigated valleys of Argentina. 

In 1865 there came the colony of Welshmen who 
settled on the Chubut. It took them some years to 
begin farming. In 1891 alfalfa came to them. It 
grew astonishingly. Other settlers came in and the 
valley became quite well farmed for a length of 
some thirty miles. The soil I should say is supe- 
rior to almost any irrigated land in North America. 
Along the river there are irrigable lands for fully 
200 miles. There are lands farther from the sea 
than the present irrigated lands that are less sub- 
ject to floods, and that have even a better climate 
than the lower valley. Some of these upper val- 
leys are now quite unirrigated, awaiting transpor- 
tation and people. This is one of the thinly-settled 
parts of the world. In 1895 there were in all the 
territory but 3,500 people, including Indians. In 
1909 there were enumerated 18,000. Since then con- 
siderable growth has taken place, no doubt, so that 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 137 

there may be now 20,000 people in Chubnt. A num- 
ber of these people are in the Andean region, and 
are more in touch with Chile than with the coast 
of the Atlantic. It is a journey of two or three 
weeks between the western colonies and the ports 
along the Atlantic Coast. Madryn is practically 
the sole port of consequence. 

The coast of Chubut has one of the finest cli- 
mates of the world. Its sole disagreeable feature 
is the wind that occasionally prevails, but this is 
much less evident than is the wind of Santa Cruz 
and Tierra del Fuego. The heat of summer is some- 
times considerable, but there are rarely hot nights. 
Indian corn ripens, if it escapes summer frosts, 
which occasionally follow rains and southerly winds. 
Maize, however, is never seen save in gardens. Ap- 
ples, peaches, pears, apricots, medlars, plums, cher- 
ries and even figs ripen. The eucalyptus tree is 
seen at Eawson. These facts show how mild must 
be the winter climate, although the inhabitants 
speak of it as being cold. There is rarely snow 
along the coast region. Snow falls in the Cordil- 
leras, sometimes to a considerable depth. Sheep 
never suffer from cold or snow save in the Cordil- 
leras. They may suffer from hunger in the coast 
region. We have no climate just the same in Amer- 
ica; it is warmer than the coast of California, and 
cooler than the interior valleys of California. It 
may some day become a great fruit-growing region, 
as the apples and grapes of Chubut are as delicious 
as any in the world, though there are not more 



138 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

than ten producing orchards in the territory, out- 
side of the Cordilleras. One orchard near Rawson 
sold in one year more than $10,000 (paper money) 
worth of fruit from three acres of land. 

As one leaves the coast he finds the land and 
climate to be similar for a long distance inland. 
The uplands are tablelands of slight elevation, cov- 
ered thinly with a number of species of shrubs and 
beneath the shrubs some grass. Sheep graze nearly 
all of these desert shrubs. They will hardly die of 
starvation while the brush remains. Thus while 
sheep in Chubut will not get as fat as on the grass 
ranges in Santa Cruz, they will be much less apt to 
die of starvation. The scarcity of water has kept 
back this land from settlement and stocking. It is 
now practically bare of sheep. A map of the ter- 
ritory a year old shows nearly all of the eastern 
half of Chubut a blank; that is, it is all fiscal land 
and subject to sale and entry. In Santa Cruz a 
large percentage of land is taken; not so as to 
Chubut, if we except the lands of colonies, along 
the Chubut River in the Andean region and near 
Lago Sarmiento, where there is a colony of Boers. 
In 1909 there were 18,957,230 hectares unoccupied 
in Chubut. In short, nearly all of Chubut is now 
unoccupied and almost unoceupiable chiefly on ac- 
count of a lack of water. 

There is said to be little or none of the territory 
that is unfit for sheep. It awaits the coming of 
the windmill, the well, the wire fence and animals. 
These are coming and yet there is room for a very 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 139 

vast increase in numbers. The testimony of Justo 
Alsua of Rawson is that in 1895 there were but 65,- 

000 sheep in Chubut; there are now 5,000,000 and 
they are increasing rapidly. 

Time did not permit me to see the Andean region 
where there are the finest lands, the best climates 
and the most animals. I am told that in the Cor- 
dilleras there is enough rain to make good grass; 
that there is timber enough for the needs of the 
people, and that the climate is delightful, only with 
sometimes rather deep snows in winter. There it 
is said that a league of land will carry from 2,000 
to 8,000 sheep. In the coastal region it will carry 
but from 500 to 1,500 sheep to the league. The 
Cordilleras await a railway, which, it seems safe 
to say, is now under construction, running from 
Rivadavia inland in a northwesterly direction. 
There is also talk of extending the railway from 
Madryn to the Cordilleras. 

Alfalfa here is of easy establishment wherever 
there is irrigation, and is as rank in growth as any 
that I have seen in North America. It yields four 
cuttings per year. It is harvested with American 
machinery and hauled on American wagons ; in fact, 
in Chubut I saw none but American wagons and 
haying machinery, though the wheat is harvested 
by the use of Australian harvesters that cut off the 
heads and thresh the grain as they go. They are 
modern machines that require but four or six horses. 

1 should estimate that alfalfa in Chubut would yield 
about six tons to the acre; it may sometimes yield 



140 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

more. The acreage is increasing, though the old 
canals in the valley are altogether inadequate for 
its irrigation needs, and the Welsh settlers of the 
valley lack the enterprise that would develop all of 
their land. No more than 10 per cent of the land 
in the lower valley capable of irrigation is in use; 
maybe 5 per cent would come nearer the accurate 
figure. This I observed in driving up and down the 
valley. Alfalfa seed yields as much as 1,000 pounds 
per acre, and even higher yields, though a moder- 
ate estimate would be about 600 to 700 pounds per 
acre. The alfalfa of Chubut is mostly baled and 
shipped away down the coast to the various ports of 
Santa Cruz and the ports of Chubut. Much also is 
hauled by wagon to interior camps and is consumed 
by freighters plying to the Cordilleras. I cannot 
accurately estimate the amount of alfalfa now grown 
in Chubut; the valley is capable of growing a mil- 
lion tons if all of the water of the river ever is uti- 
lized. There is no engineering difficulty in taking 
out the water, though the descent of the valley is 
rather slight and the canals are necessarily rather 
long. The periodic floods of the valley do not injure 
land sown in alfalfa except to destroy the stand. 

In the Andes it is said that alfalfa may also be 
grown even without irrigation. Apples also grow 
wild there, and were used by the Indians centuries 
ago. At time of my visit alfalfa hay was selling 
for about $10 (gold) per ton in bales and alfalfa 
seed for eighteen cents (gold) per pound. I think 
the wild apple forests of the Andes tantalized me 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 141 

most of all. The Spanish people call an apple a 
manzana ; just why I do not know. The Indians live 
by eating apples they call the manzanas. Very fas- 
cinating stories were told of the Andean hills and 
valleys, the marvelous lakes and rivers, and the 
thickets of wild apples. Nearly every thicket bore 
a different kind, but these were weeks away to the 
westward, where time would not permit me to go. 
I quote again from my diary : 

"March 15: Few in Trelow speak aught but 
Welsh and Spanish, but I find marooned here a 
cultured and courteous Londoner who keeps a book 
shop. It is a curious little shop, containing a curi- 
ous assortment of books in Spanish, English and 
Welsh. Some of them are so good that I imagine 
he bought them for his own reading. The dust of 
the streets is so thick that he must cover his coun- 
ters with newspapers. He is a student of philoso- 
phy, teaches Spanish, sells books, reads, dreams and 
seems happy. My room at Hotel Espaiiol opens on 
to a patio or inner court. In the patio there are 
a parrot, receiving training in language, many cagecl 
canaries, and other small birds and many potted 
plants, dry and dusty. Among the plants is a stalk 
of maize with a small ear that the seiiora proudly 
displayed to me. Very sweet little dark-haired se- 
noritas play in the patio, or are they yet ninas? I 
have not yet learned the line between childhood 
and young ladyhood, but these are under ten years 
of age, so I think they must be niiias. There are 
dogs of various ages in the patio and I think a few 



142 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

fleas for good measure. It is a little world all of 
itself. 

"My room is the typical one of Spanish hotels. 
It is windowless, but has glass in the door and also 
a shutter that lets in some air when it is open. 
The seiiora makes also other beds in the patio, and 
I wish that I were the lucky one. to sleep there. My 
language grows in volume if not in quality. My 
pajamas being in sad need of repair, I looked 
through my dictionary and found the words for 
needle and thread, 'aguja y hilo,' and gravely 
begged these of the seiiora. 'Por coser, seiior?' 
('for sewing'), wonderingly. I replied, 'Si, seiiora,' 
and she laughingly captured the offending pajamas 
and took them away for repairs. The seiiora s at 
Spanish hotels are far more efficient than the hus- 
bands; these usually are mere drones in the hives, 
samplers of wine and ornaments in conversation. 
Again I was proud when at luncheon I could ask 
the 'mozo' (waiter) whether the 'pan' (bread) was 
made of 'trigo' (wheat) of Chubut. He replied that 
it was not; and I asked again in Spanish 'Is not 
your wheat buenof To this he replied that indeed 
their wheat is good, but that as yet they do not 
grind it in Chubut. 

"The days are hot but the nights cool and the 
mornings chill, so I have my several cups of hot 
water and cream and my roll and butter at a little 
table set in the sun of the patio in company with 
the parrot, the canaries and the playful dogs. This 
morning when I had finished breakfast as I was 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 143 

going to my room I observed the big, hungry pup- 
pies looking wistfully at my table on which reposed 
yet some bread and the cup, plate and cream pitcher. , 
A rude jolt would overturn the frail table, so in 
troubled tones I called, 'Ah, sehora, dos perros!' 
That sounded like 'those dogs;' but really I had 
said 'Madam, two dogs' when really there were 
many more than two dogs in the patio. However, 
the sehora with smiles came running to the rescue. 

"This morning there was commotion in the 
patio. The man who slept in the bed under the 
sky was up before day, preparing to start for some 
place far inland. He hoped to make twenty-five 
leagues today. He appeared to be a Frenchman, 
with his pointed beard, top boots, new riding 
breeches and elegant way. It was interesting to 
see the preparation for his journey. He had much 
aid in gathering his things together and packing 
them away. The sehora helped most efficiently. 
There was much talking and gesticulation; it seemed 
that something was lost. The sehora rapidly ran- 
sacked his bags of stuff and finally his pockets; he 
stood meekly through the ordeal. Presently the 
missing hair brush was found, rolled up in his pack. 
Then soon after sunrise they got off in a two-wheeled 
cart, a wee senorita sitting beside him and the hotel 
folk assembled at the door to wish him 'adios.' 

"Each morning the old cocinero (cook) brings 
the parrot from the closet, where it has been con- 
fined, places it on its perch and sitting down beside 
it begins to peel potatoes or do some other task, 



144 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

meanwhile giving Polly a lesson in Spanish. It is 
given one syllable from el Cocinero, one from Pol- 
ly, another from el Cocinero, a response from Pol- 
ly, and so on by the hour. That is the way to learn 
a language. I should like to have the cocinero give 
me lessons in similar manner. In the evenings I 
used sometimes to sit and read with a sweet little 
senorita of seven. We used the little primer of 
the country and it was delightful to hear her rattle 
off the sentences, pointing with her tiny finger to 
the pictures that illustrated the words. It is amaz- 
ing how much clearer is the enunciation of children 
and of women than of men. I have grave difficulty 
in comprehending words when men speak them, but 
little when I hear them spoken by children. 

"March 17: I drove to Eawson, the capital of 
Chubut. It is a strange old forgotten town, near 
the sea, and while it is really not older than forty 
years it appears to be 400. Among the rough cob- 
blestones of the streets were growing and blooming 
glorious poppies of the variety that we call Califor- 
nia poppies or escheholtzia. As is my custom, I 
gathered seed. The flowers seemed larger than in 
North America. A dry, dusty, stagnant place this 
is, with no agriculture near and probably not more 
than a dozen visitors arriving in a day, but the Gov- 
ernor lives here, the territorial chief of police and 
other officers, and- there is a garrison of soldiers, 
mostly lads doing their year of service. This, once 
the capital of the Welsh colony, has not a single 
Welsh family. Thus does the rising tide of Latin 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 145 

humanity overflow the little isolated colony. All the 
lower part of the town except the church had been 
swept away by the river's flood some years ago, 
and never rebuilt. I think I never saw a lonelier 
or a sadder spot. With my companion I visited the 
barracks and met some fine, straight intelligent 
young men. One was of English parentage, a hand- 
some fellow, but he had lived so long in the Andes 
that he could speak only Spanish. 

"Poor old Eawson, pathetic remnant of happier 
days, will probably be some time quite deserted, as 
it is away from the railway, away from the sea and 
has not even agriculture near it. The chief of po- 
lice of Chubut is Sehor Justo Alsua. He has an 
estancia near Eawson, where he has fenced in some 
leagues of desert and stocked with sheep. We went 
to his home, which is on the banks of the river. 
There I wandered happily in a lovely garden. Figs 
ripened, roses bloomed and there were great masses 
of the golden broom all ablaze. In front of his 
white-walled Spanish house were eucalyptus trees. 
That shows clearly how different is the climate from 
that of Boston, which is in nearly the same latitude, 
but Boston would have a surer and hotter summer. 

"Here I mark another astonishing thing. The 
pretty gardens that I see are those belonging to the 
Spanish or Italian people and not as a rule to the 
Welsh. I had expected it to be the other way. Senor 
Alsua is an enthusiast as to the merits and possi- 
bilities of Chubut. The territory can carry several 
times its present number of sheep,, he thinks, and 



146 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

here they make the grazing better rather than worse 
as they feed over it. They nibble the brush and 
make it to shoot out finer and more appetizing, I pre- 
sume, though he thinks that they also improve the 
grass. This is the land of the Rambouillet-Merino, 
though the Romneys are used to some extent. Lin- 
colns are used, too. He finds that he secures the 
largest crops of lambs from his Romney ewes ; next 
come the Lincolns, then the Rarnbouillets. They 
allow a sheep four acres, more or less, for its winter 
and summer grazing. In poor desert camps it must 
have more land. There is one great estancia, the 
Lochiel, with 60,000 sheep on about 250,000 acres. 

"Sefior Alsua had come down here from the 
north, from the state of Entre Rios. From there 
he had brought good sheep, his enthusiasm for do- 
ing big things well and his love of a garden. I asked 
for an estimate of the cost of establishing an es- 
tancia of 25,000 acres, renting an adjoining tract 
of the same size. This estimate is so interesting, as 
it illustrates the few things needed and their rela- 
tive importance, that I will give it entire. The fig- 
ures are in Argentine paper dollars, worth about 
42 cents in United States currency: 

Four leagues (25,000 acres) of land. $ 40,000 

Pour wells and American windmills 8,000 

Four small houses for shepherds 2,400 

House for capitaz (foreman) 3,000 

Dipping vats and appurtenances 1,000 

Shearing sheds and machines 4,500 

Fencing four leagues and cross-fencing 9,600 

Fifteen horses for the shepherds. 750 

8,000 good young ewes 32,000 

240 good young rams (extra good ones) 12,000 

Total $113,250 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 147 

This in United States money is $47,565. Follow- 
ing is the estimate (in Argentine paper) for operat- 
ing expenses : 

Wages of four shepherds, one year $2,400 

Wages of capitaz 1,200 

Food and supplies 2,000 

Shearing 1,000 

Hauling the wool to market by contract 600 

Total $7,200 

Estimated income from 24,600 kilos of wool, at 56 cents, $13,776. 

There are also 6,400 lambs, which are added to 
the flock. This makes the second year's wool clip 
49,000 kilos of wool, bringing $27,440. My only 
comment on these estimates is that if Sehor Alsua 
were to select the land, locate the estancia, buy the 
sheep and give them his personal care he might 
make some such profits as are indicated — and they 
grow rosier as the flock increases, but there have 
been many men driven into bankruptcy by attempt- 
ing to grow wool in Chubut. As in Santa Cruz 
much depends on where one locates, how far one 
must haul wool and on many other factors, man- 
agement being one of the essentials. Chubut will 
never send out floods of fat mutton; the country is 
too arid for that, but here will originate a great 
amount of good wool. About the hardest thing is 
to get water. Down through the dry gravel beds 
they go for 300 feet before they find it, and then 
in many cases it is unfit for human consumption. 

Sehor Ithel Berwyn is son of a "Welsh immi- 
grant and has now an estancia inland just where 
the brush-covered plains begin to give way to the 



148 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

grassy country. He lias about 75,000 acres; not all 
of it is under fence. On this tract there are 1,000 
mares, 3,000 cattle and 12,000 sheep. The cattle 
are of the Short-horn and Hereford races, the 
horses Hackney, Clydesdale and native Criollo 
stock, and the sheep Rambouillet and Lincoln. Since 
he is on the river, he grows alfalfa, so that in win- 
ter he can feed his pure-bred sires a little if they 
chance to need it. His surplus horses are sent to 
market in Chile. Since there are no wolves in the 
land, it is easier to keep sheep than with ranchers 
on our western mountains and plains, but the little 
foxes give trouble; they bother nothing but the 
lambs. Senor Berwyn's shepherds care for the 
sheep on unfenced range, seeing only that they come 
together at night to sleep. 

Although Rawson was dry, dusty and forsaken, 
down by the river was a little irrigated fruit farm 
of no more than three acres, and yet a little para- 
dise when one entered it. I wandered down there, 
attracted by the greenness. Great quince trees 
were laden with big, yellow fruit, and pear and peach 
trees would have broken down had their branches 
not been upheld by props. The Italian senora 
gathered me two enormous bunches of grapes and 
brought me a chair and table, placing them under 
a pear tree. The grapes were pink and purple and 
green, with all intermediate shades, and were sweet, 
melting and altogether delicious. It seemed impos- 
sible that I could eat them all and I felt fairly pig- 
gish to do it, yet "poco a poco" (one by one) the 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 149 

grapes disappeared. They were far more tender 
and delicious than the grapes of California, al- 
though belonging to a similar class. Then I bought 
a pear that weighed a pound, as I learned after- 
ward, and carried it off as a trophy. 

This was my first contact with the gardening 
class of Italians in Argentina. The senor was a 
fine, stocky, active, intelligent man, proud of his 
wonderful garden of fruit. He had windbreaks of 
poplars about it, as the winds are strenuous. The 
senora had a fine face, full of intelligence, patience 
and duty. There is something very fine about the 
best Italian character. They last year sold from 
their garden fruit to the value of $10,000, sending 
much of it to Buenos Aires. 

I quote from my journal: "My legs needed 
stretching, so I walked out from Trelew today. 
The wind blew hard in my face, but I felt so well 
that I did not care. First I passed an empty plain 
of curious, crumbling black earth, unirrigated. 
They say that the irrigation system is wretched, 
not of a fourth its needed capacity, and that the 
owners are very backward and stubborn. Past the 
barren land I came to wheatfields, with very good 
wheat too, and then alfalfa and tall poplar trees — 
for all the world just what one would see in Utah. 
There were small lots of sheep in the pastures, kept 
there for home use, for this is the land of mutton- 
eating. Sheep feed all the people of Argentina. 
By the river rested the great, gaunt oxen of the 
Cordilleras, weary after their long journey down 



150 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

with wool. A plain little brick church attracted 
me; in the churchyard were many graves, and on 
the headstones only Welsh inscriptions. I turned 
in at a garden and chatted with the Italian gar- 
dener, proud that I could speak enough Spanish to 
converse even in a primitive manner. He says that 
it is too cool here for maize, if one irrigates ; that 
the wind blows more than he likes, although he has 
a thick planting of Lombardy poplars about his 
g;arden ; that his grapes are just beginning to bear. 
The frost has nipped his squashes and may get the 
beans that he is watering. 

"At the hotel some one left me a package of 
glorious big yellow and red apples, fall pippins I 
think they are, and for dessert we have grapes. It 
is evidently a land fit for mankind. I am interested 
in seeing how the Spanish influence floods over all 
and extinguishes all else. At my table were two 
men, one evidently not of Spanish blood, yet he 
spoke more fluent Spanish than his companions, 
and English haltingly. 

"March 19: In the afternoon I went driving 
with Ellis Thurtell, the English bookseller, who 
likes now and then to close his shop. We drove 
across the river to see a fine garden, kept of course 
by an Italian. It was a marvelous place, full of 
smallish but heavily-laden trees of peach, apple, 
plum, loquat, prunus simoni, medlars (very curi- 
ous) and grapes. The grapes were easily the finest 
that I have ever seen. The Italian gardener is from 
the Piedmont region in Italy. Their little house 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 151 

was embowered in flowers, the porches screened 
with morning glories. There was a look of refine- 
ment and character in the faces of his wife and 
mother. For a little basket of fruit, chiefly grapes 
and peaches, I paid $2 or about 84 cents, which is 
dear, but then it was worth that much to see the 
garden. There are only about half a dozen gardens 
like it in Chubut. Some day probably Chubut ap- 
ples and other fruits will be famed in Buenos 
Aires, Rio de Janeiro and London. 

"Mr. Thurtell told me frankly about the difficult- 
ies of Chubut. For thirty-one years after the set- 
tlement there came' no floods at all, so settlers built 
anywhere their houses of adobe mud, placed conven- 
iently on their farms ; then came the water and 
houses melted away. Once for eight months their 
land was under water, and it came again the next 
year. Usually the water is not more than two feet 
deep. I should think that dykes would hold it off, 
at least from a part of the valley, which is in many 
places ten miles wide. 

"As we approached a little Welsh cottage on the 
river bank, Mr. Thurtell remarked, 'I must stop 
here; these people would hardly forgive me if we 
did not, as they are old friends.' In the dooryard 
were many gay marigolds. The housewife made us 
welcome and shy little red-haired lassies washed the 
dinner dishes with water heated in a kettle hanging 
in the fireplace, beneath which burned small sticks. 
The lassies were amused when we called them 'se- 
noritas,' and spoke to them in the Spanish tongue. 



152 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

They attend the Spanish school and know the lan- 
guage quite well, although their mother knows none 
of it. They cut for us thick slices of bread from a 
loaf as big as a peck measure and gave us good tea. 
There was the merry click of an American mower 
outside, cutting the last crop of alfalfa. 

"At my hotel I did a very daring thing: I washed 
my window with my bath towel. I hope the sefiora 
will not observe it and take offense. A wee sehorita 
comes to sweep and make my bed. I will give her 
one of my big yellow apples. She takes it with 
grave, yet smiling courtesy — 'Muchas gracias, 
senor, es muy, muy linda,' which means, "Many 
thanks, sir; it is very fine.' 

"How I admire the splendid enthusiasm of the 
Spanish people. In their conversation I often 
wonder whether there may not be a revolution 
brewing. At the table today there was so animated 
a conversation, with so many gestures, that I felt 
sure it presaged something serious. However, it 
turned out to be a discussion of whether or no to 
order another beefsteak, which feat was finally con- 
summated. Steaks here come 'hot from the cows,' 
as there is no ice or refrigeration and meats are not 
kept any length of time ; in fact they are eaten be- 
fore they are cold.. 

"March 19 (Sunday) : Since the service in the 
churches is all in Welsh or Spanish I walked out 
into the desert instead of attending services. The 
shrubs are curious; some of them seem to have 
never any normal leaves — doubtless because there is 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 153 

little moisture to be transpired in this land. I ob- 
served the little tucotueos or native guinea pigs and 
wondered how they lived without water. Some of 
the shrubs bear strange little blooms, now late in 
their September. There are here great nests of 
ants. I watched for a long time a procession along 
an ant highway leading from their nest, or city, out 
into the surrounding country. They bore burdens 
of leaves, sticks and little pebbles, all for the higher 
upbuilding of their city. Some carried tiny blos- 
soms of plants — these I assume for food. It was 
fascinating to see them meet and converse for a time 
with their feelers. Perhaps the ant going in told 
the outgoing one where to find a particularly awk- 
ward stick or leaf that it could find and bear. T can 
not see that ants are wiser than mankind ; both toil 
for things that they have not and both fail to appre- 
ciate the things they already have, hopelessly ignor- 
ing the simple life. In the town a new house is 
building; I smile to see with what zealous care men 
toil to shut out the sun and the air ; there is not even 
a balcony on which one might sleep. People in many 
parts of the world are still cave-like in their habits. 

SENOR ERRECOBORDE. 

The Welsh people having failed, through lack 
of capital and ambition, greatly to develop the 
Chubut valley, the Latins are coming in to displace 
them. Seiior Domingo Errecoborde, estanciero of 
Buenos Aires province, and of Chubut, has a fine 
farm on the river, with also an estancia being fenced 



154 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

out in the desert. He pumps water from the river 
to supplement the supply of the miserable canals.. 
He was kind enough to ask the privilege of showing 
me some estancias in Chubut and as my interpreter 
was ill I gladly accepted his offer. Senor Erre- 
coborde has a history. Of a rich family, he ran 
away from home when a boy and went to sea, 
learned to be engineer, was on many ships in many 
seas and for study and culture lived in England, 
Germany and France. It was this exiling that made 
him have a warm spot in his big heart for me — an 
exile from my own land. ''At eleven I will come 
for you," he said, but it was one o'clock when his 
equipage appeared at the hotel entrance. How- 
ever, the whole town knew of his entrance into it. 
He came with a cracking of whip and a cloud of 
dust, driving to a strong spring wagon a big horse 
in shafts and a wild little mule on either- side. I do 
not think that the mules had ever before been in 
harness, but a detail like that would not concern 
Senor Errecoborde. Breakfast we had then, and 
immediately gave our attention to getting away. 
The "moolahs" had to be disentangled and it took 
all of the assembled men and boys to head us for 
the desert. Finally we made a flying start amid a 
cloud of dust, a cracking of whip and the barking 
of many dogs. We dashed out into the open coun- 
try and Senor Errecoborde saw to it that the mules 
ran as hard as they could run nearly every min- 
ute. As the road was thick in autumnal dust and 
had in it also deep chuck holes it was not as smooth 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 155 

a progress as T have had, but by clinging to the 
seat, I remained in the wagon. 

It was a joy to drive miles and miles among 
the farms, to see the long lines of Lombardy pop- 
lars by the canals, the fields of restful green alfalfa, 
the adobe cottages and the sheep. It was difficult 
to realize that I was in South America, not Utah, 
and I could not but reflect what a different valley 
it would have been had the Mormons settled there. 
In fact, were I the Argentine government, I would 
at once send for the leaders of our Mormon people 
and show to them the opportunities of Chubut, for 
Mormons and water will make gardens of ash heaps. 
Had our Mormons gone to Chubut, today there 
would be fine, large canals, capable of watering 
nearly all the valley, with endless miles of alfalfa 
and frequent villages. They would have had water 
on the upper mesas where no floods ever come; 
they would have been exporting apples to England 
by this time, with a steamship line devoted to 
carrying them. One has to get away from home 
to appreciate the great work the Mormon people 
have done in our West, thanks largely to the strong 
current of Danish blood among them, their inti- 
mate knowledge of the power of co-operation and 
their patient unremitting labor. 

"The trouble in South America," humorously 
remarked Senor Errecoborde, "is that people do 
not like to work between meals." 

We stopped now and then to see a farm and its 
alfalfa, and perhaps an orchard, although there are 



156 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

all told I think about five bearing orchards in 
Chubut, and apples sell there for more than oranges 
in New York. But we ate delicious apples and 
peaches at one orchard and saw bees drunken with 
alfalfa honey ; their hives were bursting with it. We 
saw cabanas or pure-bred flocks of Rambouillet- 
Merino sheep, marvelously big and thick-wooled 
and good, but perhaps a little too wrinkled for 
North American tastes. So it went on and on, all 
the rest of that day, and for several days following. 

A NATIVE GAUCHO'S ESTANCIA. 

I recall one place where we stopped to see the 
famous sheep of a great breeder, an Argentine. 
Having inspected the flock we were leaving the 
corral when. he stooped down, picked up something, 
glanced at it and threw it contemptuously away. 
It looked like a coin to me, so I picked it up. It 
was a centavo, a big copper coin. "Why did he 
throw away this?" I whispered to Senor Erreco- 
borde. "Because he is very rich," was the reply. 
"The coin is too small for his use." We were in- 
vited to luncheon, or noonday breakfast. The house, 
of adobe bricks, had a floor of clay. There were in 
the principal room a fireplace, one chair, a bench 
and some boxes that served as seats. The senora 
was cooking our breakfast over the embers of the 
open fire. While it was preparing she produced 
the mate gourd and filled it half full of mate leaves, 
then with hot water, took a few sips of the tea 
through a small silver tube and handed it then to 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 157 

ns in turn. We sipped mate for an hour, while 
the mutton boiled over the coals. "Whenever the 
gourd was empty the sehora would refill it with 
water, take a sip herself, then pass on the things 
to us. It would be an offense against manners to 
wipe the tube before placing it in one's mouth. 

The sehora gave us a delicious soup of rice, 
mutton and vegetables. In return we presented 
her with peaches that we had brought and roses 
that we wore. There was not a living green thing 
near the casa of this senora. She and her husband 
are typical of the true plainspeople of South Amer- 
ica who have never' known life within gardens and 
are content to live in what we would consider great 
poverty and squalor, although that man has large 
possessions and throws aside as worthless big cop- 
per centavos. 

AN ENGLISHMAN'S CHACRA. 

One evening we approached the farm or chacra 
of Senor Miguel Mullhall, a man of English blood 
and Argentine birth. He had been an adventurer 
in many wild parts, chiefly in Patagonia. I spent 
several nights at his hospitable home. He told many 
stories of his adventures. Once in the Andes, 
he took a notion to descend the Rio Negro, a great 
and then unexplored river flowing to the sea to 
the north of Chubut. Having no boat, with an ad- 
venturous North American he made a boat of bull 
hides, loaded it with wild apples and a little dried 
meat, and started on that long journey through the 



158 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

wilderness. He came safely through, but it was a 
miracle. Again he explored the Andes and located 
passes through which he could drive cattle to Chile. 
He was a man of great charm and interest, an om- 
nivorous reader, a student of languages and men, 
now settled down to growing alfalfa in Chubut. He 
bales the hay, sells it and makes a good living from 
the proceeds. 

Mullhall's place was new, attractive, modern 
and comfortable. He had a Spanish gardener who 
was doing all sorts of interesting things in the new 
lawn. There was water for irrigation, so that it 
should soon be a paradise. His senora was the 
daughter of a Welsh colonist; her father was one 
of the early leaders of the movement, and an influ- 
ential man. There was also a sister with children 
visiting at the house. I quote again from my jour- 
nal: " These children are astonishing phenomena. 
I have never seen anything like them before. There 
are so many of them; the eldest is about twelve — 
how many are younger I have not been able to 
count. They are well dressed, well mannered and 
astonishingly self-reliant, seeming to need neither 
aid, admonishing nor reproof. When I arrive they 
come forward, one by one, to shake hands with me, 
from the greatest to the smallest, without any 
prompting from their elders. They are in fact near- 
ly exact reproductions in manners of their elders, 
and enter into all their elders ' interests, sports and 
amusements. To amuse me they very gravely set 
the phonographs going. The records are fine ones, 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 159 

not the trasliy ragtime we so often use in the North. 
They dine with us at nine o'clock each evening and 
drink large cups of strong tea. They have lived in 
Buenos Aires most of their lives, which no doubt 
accounts for their manners. I did not dream that 
children could be so selfreliant and so little trouble 
to their elders as these appeared to be." 

THE OLD INDIAN GOVERNOR. 

One night I had come in from a long ride with 
my friend Domingo (we took out fresh horses every 
morning, leaving the weary ones wherever we hap- 
pened to be), and I was hungry, in fact, longing for 
dinner, which presently was on the table. As we 
stood by our chairs waiting for our hostess to take 
her seat the "honk, honk" of an automobile sounded 
at the front, the one automobile of Chubut. It 
proved to be the big Italian car of the Presidente 
of Trelew, an automobile built for use in this wild 
country, with very high wheels of tremendous 
strength and an engine of great power. In the car 
were the Presidente, Sehor Alsua, chief of police, 
and the old Governor of Chubut. Of course there 
were much ceremonious introduction, hand-shaking, 
bows and all that, and as the governor remained 
standing we all stood. He was a most interesting 
character, tall, lank, brown as an Indian and seem- 
ing to have a good deal of that blood. He had a 
quiet dignity, yet a fund of courtesy and good 
humor that was irresistible. He was not the per- 
manent governor of Chubut, but was invested by 



160 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

the President of the republic with powers to inves- 
tigate government affairs in any of the territories 
of Argentina and to supersede the acting governor 
if he chose, so he was here in Chubut setting the 
government house in order. I do not know how 
much it was needed but I imagine there was enough 
to be done. 

The governor, by his grim yet good-humored 
reticence, reminded me strangely of our North 
American Indians, but when he talked every word 
counted. Dinner was over at ten; we adjourned 
to the drawing-room and conversation flowed. I 
explained to the Presidente how, if it was an Amer- 
ican town, by bonding, it would get funds to build 
waterworks and pave streets. He was much inter- 
ested, but laughingly said, "Senor, this is South 
America. In some towns if such a thing were at- 
tempted the city government would absorb the 
funds and the waterworks would not get built, so 
our law does not provide for such procedure." 

I said the governor was taciturn. He is, with 
exceptions. He has been a great soldier, general 
and Indian fighter in his days, and some one asked 
him to tell of the time when, unsupported, he made 
a famous campaign down through Patagonia with 
a troop or regiment of cavalry. It seems that he 
took his soldiers across the frontier, driving before 
them a troop of wild mares on which to subsist, dis- 
appeared in the wilderness, and was unheard of 
for months, journeying, fighting and punishing In- 
dians, and going on and on, living on guanacos 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 161 

and horse meat. After six months of disappear- 
ance he came out at the Straits of Magellan. It was 
truly a great feat, and must bear great memories. 
The old man began the narration, speaking slowly, 
gravely, impressively. As he went on he warmed 
to the subject; he rose to his feet; we of course all 
stood then, and the story continued. His language 
was simple and strong, and his gestures -few but 
impressive. I could not understand nearly all that 
he said ; his speech was not clear, but I could under- 
stand enough to know its purport. Minutes length- 
ened into hours ; I wondered whether I could stand 
longer. At half past one o 'clock the story was fin- 
ished. "Sehores, buenos noches," said the old gov- 
ernor, with a pleasant smile, and he retired abruptly 
to his room. 

MY FLEA AND HIS EXCELLENCY. 

I was never more relieved, for I was dreadfully 
weary. The governor and I occupied the same 
room, a very large one. We lost no time in going 
to bed, but now I found myself very wakeful when 
I needed sleep. I lay wondering what I could do 
when all at once I felt a flea beginning a thorough, 
systematic exploration of my body. I hate fleas; 
they drive me wild. "What shall I do?" I feared 
to move, lest I awaken the old governor, now peace- 
fully sleeping, as I knew by his breathing. At last 
I could endure the flea no longer. I decided to strike 
a match beneath the bed covers and catch or frighten 
the pest. This I did, and although I did it with 



162 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

great care the moment that match struck the gov- 
ernor awoke. Nor did I find the flea. Remorse- 
fully I lay quiet and the governor's breathing soon 
indicated that he was asleep again; then the flea 
of tenacious purpose resumed its adventure. When 
I could endure it no longer I again more cautiously 
than before lit a match beneath the bed clothes, and 
again the governor awoke. His long training as an 
Indian fighter had taught him to hear the slightest 
noise. After this the flea and I dropped off to sleep. 
At six o'clock in the morning the old man sprang 
out of his bed as lightly as a boy and ten times as 
wideawake, dressed rapidly, went out and called 
for his mate. He could kill off several of me, if 
that is his normal manner of life. I had slept no 
more than an hour and a half, but I felt all right 
after I was up and had bathed in cold water. Per- 
haps there is not much in North American rules of 
hygiene. The children after midnight had each 
one a cup of strong tea, yet they too seemed to have 
slept well and to be serene and happy the next 
morning. 

A WAYSIDE DRINKING PLACE. 

His Excellency went away early in his big auto- 
mobile, inspecting the irrigating canals, and we re- 
turned later to Trelew. On the way down we passed a 
wayside inn, where travelers to the Cordilleras tarry 
for food and drink, obtain final repairs for their 
wagons and have their animals shod. Near the 
inn was a curious sign. To understand it please 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 163 

know that a "caballo" is a horse and "caballero" 
is a gentleman or horseman. There by a little pas- 
ture field was a sign, which, literally translated, 
read, "Here mules and gentlemen pasture itself." I 
assume that the sign writer meant to say "mules 
and horses," but it was most apt as he got it, for 
beside the road lay two or three drunken men ; they 
were "pasturing" themselves with a vengeance. 
Senor Errecoborde was astonished to find among 
the mass of wagons one of his own, a great wagon, 
laden with supplies for his estancia far away. It 
had left his farm days before and should have been 
at the estancia where the fencing wire was urgently 
needed. One of the peons was found, a sullen, 
drunken brute. Questioned, he replied: "The 
wheel was 'not strong. We will go on 'mahana' 
(tomorrow)." The capitaz also was drunk. We 
passed that way the next day and to my astonish- 
ment and the sehor's disgust they had not yet 
sobered sufficiently to enable them to proceed. I 
mention these things in passing to comfort North 
American farmers who sometimes think they have 
cause for dissatisfaction with their employes. The 
North American hired man is an angel of light com- 
pared with — but hold, I must not make compari- 
sons. 

All the workmen at the estancia were waiting 
idly the coming of this wagon to proceed with their 
fencing. We dashed madly down the valley, twenty 
miles in two hours, with fresh, strong horses. 

At the inn the senora received me with joy, the 



164 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

old cocinero smiled extensively over his broad, good- 
humored face ; the tiny sefiorita was glad to see me ; 
the parrot had learned a few new words ; there was 
a new dog in the patio and, best of news, there was 
a ship in the harbor and letters from home might 
reach me the next day. That night I slept and 
dreamed of home. Many is the time when I have 
been thankful for the gift of dreaming. 

A FRESH START. 

Next day Sefior Errecoborde appeared with a 
fresh team, this time with three wheelers and one 
horse in the lead, hitched with very long traces so 
that he was far ahead. This leader was unused to 
his new position and liked better to turn about and 
come back with his comrades, so it took a deal of 
generalship to get out of town with him. Before 
we had accomplished that feat I think half the men- 
folk of the place were assembled, helping us, and 
never one of them with a derisive smile. Fancy the 
guff that one would get in a North American vil- 
lage if he were in such a predicament. The South 
Americans beat us a mile when it comes to kindly 
courtesy. Well, we got out of town at last and 
then the horses went along better. With a long 
whip the senor kept the leader flying, and with a 
shorter one kept the wheelers following. We Avent 
down to the sea, visiting an estancia where there 
was a garden with high, white walls, over which 
peeped sprays of lovely yellow broom 'and in which 
we ate delicious figs and grapes. Then we crossed 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 165 

the river and dashed, up to the house of an English 
family. I must here present a picture of this place. 
The house is a plain brick, laid up with mud mortar 
(which is commonly used, since lime is dear), the 
house set down in the desert plain and, as yet, with 
no planting about it. Near by is the river and in the 
middle of its channel a little mound or island of 
bricks and debris — the place where once stood their 
house, with a delightful garden surrounding it. On 
the opposite side of the river were great towering 
Lombardy poplar trees sheltering a neighbor's fine 
irrigated farm. All of the farm belonging to the 
English family had been devoured by the river; 
they had moved back a part of the house, and were 
now clearing new fields of their brush in order again 
to make a start in alfalfa growing. They had in- 
stalled a pump with a gasoline engine attached and 
now only the ditches and the clearing remained to 
be done. An English sailor was working at the 
brush, which was not heavy or difficult to clear 
away. In the brush there were many wild guinea 
pigs. They will come out fearlessly if the intruder 
will only remain motionless, for a brief space of 
time, as I soon demonstrated. 

A WELSH HOME. 

Within the home we found the father, a shrewd, 
cultured Welshman, who had been long a business 
man in Buenos Aires. The mother was a kindly, 
intelligent, warm-hearted English woman born in 
Buenos Aires. The son was in his young manhood, 



166 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

and the daughter was pretty, dimpled, demure yet 
determined. There also were an Indian lad who 
got up our horses for us, and a half-blood Indian 
maid who milked the cows and helped with the 
housework. She was handsome and could speak 
fairly good English. At any rate, I experienced no 
difficulty in understanding it. 

The house inside was all neatness, order and 
beauty — one of those little paradises that English 
people carry with them to all parts of the world, 
for their home traditions amount to a religion. If 
one sat within the house and did not look out up- 
on the wild and desert surroundings, one might al- 
most believe one's* self in Kent. There we had the 
piano played, Senor Errecoborde proving to be a 
pianist and great lover of music. "We had elaborate 
and exceedingly good meals, and I observed with 
amused interest the courtship of. Senor Errecoborde, 
who had already confessed to. me that he dearly 
loved the pretty English girl. I hope he won her; 
surely such devotion as his ought not to go unre- 
warded, and I must record that in all my journeys 
I have found no kinder or more courteous man than 
he. Grave, serious, with ambitions and ideals, he 
yet in many ways strongly reminded me of that 
greatest character in fiction, "Don Quixote," whose 
unconscious nobility lay in his gentle kindness and 
chivalry. I hope that the ravening river relented; 
that the fields are today intact and covered over 
with alfalfa meadows; that Senor Errecoborde has 
his very pretty senor a, and that peace and content 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 167 

reign in the home of my English friends on Rio 
Chubut. 

MAIL AT LAST! 

That evening came the little train from Madryn, 
bringing mail. None had come for three weeks, so 
there was a considerable package of it. I watched 
the mail bags, a great stack of them, being piled in- 
to a cart, and hoped that they contained letters 
from home. It seemed impossible that the letters 
could be distributed that night, so I went to my 
hotel and dined with friends. Judge, then, of my 
astonishment when at about nine o'clock a man 
came bearing to me an armful of letters, several of 
which were from home. These letters recalled me 
to earth ; I had been living in a fool's paradise, with- 
out care or realization of my ties and duties in the 
North, so soon does one forget. Why, I was almost 
on the point of contracting for two leagues of land 
and setting up my longest boy in the sheep business. 
Instead here came stern orders from my govern- 
ment, telling me what I must and what I must not 
do and giving me only half enough time in which to 
do it. It was, then, with mixed emotions that I 
came rudely down to earth and began again seri- 
ously to plan my future steps. Soon, now, a ship 
would come to bear me away northward, away from 
Chubut. 

A SCHOOL. 

Here is the last entry in my journal from Chu- 
but: "The school is a large building surrounded 



168 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

with glass-covered verandas, large enough to shelter 
the ninos when they play. The wind is fierce at 
times. The school is said to be very good. All teach- 
ing is in Spanish, and the principal of the school is 
a sehorita, a grand-daughter of one of the early 
Welsh colonists. Well, Spanish is a beautiful lan- 
guage, which Welsh is not. My tiny six-year-old 
sehorita read with me in my primer ; she has a deli- 
cious little voice and from her I get the sounds of 
the words perfectly. Some one sent me a yellow 
apple. After all the world is 'nray bueno.' 

"Having finished my letter writing and govern- 
ment reports, I walked to a lonely farm where be- 
side the canal were green trees ; then I climbed to 
the mesa and sat down in the desert, where the air 
was delicious ; the sun had set. There I read again 
my letters from home and a chapter in the gospel 
of San Mateo in Spanish ; then I found some pebbles 
almost as bright as garnets for my wee sehorita and 
came back to my hotel. Tomorrow early I go to 
Madryn." 

"VAMOS A MADRYN, MANANA." 

The Spanish language is peculiar ; its verbs are 
perplexing. For instance, I wished to give notice 
to my landlady that in the morning I would leave, 
so I remarked, casually, "Vamos a Madryn, ma- 
hana." She looked so astonished and perturbed 
that I posted over to my friend the bookseller to 
ask him what I had said that was wrong. He 
laughed heartily. "You have only asked her to 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 169 

elope with you; that is all," was his reply. I had 
said, "Yon and I will go to Madryn in the morning." 
I should have said, "Voy a Madryn, mahana," and 
this I made all haste to say, to her smiling com- 
prehension. 

At Madryn I took passage on the Mitre, a Ger- 
man coasting steamer, and went north to Buenos 
Aires. It was interesting to see what the Germans 
were doing. Here they have established a line of 
good, comfortable little steamers that ply all up and 
down the Patagonian coast. Their officers are as 
spick-and-span in their blue and gold lace as though 
th4y were plying between Hamburg and New York, 
and their men are carefully disciplined and trained 
— in marked contrast to the sailors on the Argen- 
tine steamers. They are slow boats, but comfort- 
able, and the variety of passengers is great. Among 
the people on board were some Scottish women and 
children from the Andes ; they were leaving Argen- 
tina for Australia. Their husbands and fathers had 
gone on before and selected new locations on the 
west coast of Australia, where they felt that condi- 
tions were more favorable than in Argentina. The 
children had been born in the Cordilleras and had 
never seen a school or a village until they came on 
this journey through Trelew and Madryn. The wom- 
en complained that it was too difficult to get title to 
land in Argentina ; that they did not like the climate 
of the Andean region, and did not think it a good 
place in which to bring up children. The truth is 
the Latin and the Anglo-Saxon races do not mix 



170 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

more readily than do oil and water, and any at- 
tempt at blending merely results in the Anglo-Saxon 
being submerged, the Latin character dominating. 

CHILDREN OF THE ANDES. 

These little half-wild children of the Cordilleras 
interested me. Their mothers had taught them to 
read. They were quite as intelligent as any chil- 
dren and had been so much afield that they had 
developed remarkable powers of observation. They 
were, however, as wild and shy as young Indians, 
although their shyness I managed skillfully to coax 
away as the voyage proceeded. Nearly around the 
world would their voyage be — to London first and 
then at once to Australia. The old Governor of 
Chubut was on ship and he delighted in giving me 
long harangues, which were rather embarrassing, 
as my vocabulary allowed me to catch only one word 
in ten. Unhappily I have a way of assenting to 
things said to me, whether I understand or not; it 
is so easy and simple a thing to say "si, senor," 
and it seems only common courtesy to do so. There 
was, however, another Spanish man on ship with 
whom I could converse quite well, since he spoke 
with greater distinctness and more slowly than the 
governor. He came to me one day with a puzzled 
smile. 

HIS EXCELLENCY AND I CONVERSE. 

"Seiior, is it then true that your western plains 
are yet covered with Indians ? ' ' 

' ' Oh, no ; indeed no ; they are covered with farms, 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 171 

towns and cities," I replied. "The Indians are in 
Carlisle college and there are a few along the rail- 
ways making souvenirs for tourists." 

I think he understood me, in part, but he con- 
tinued : 

"Senor, is it then true, as you have told the 
governor, that the United States army is now at 
war with the Indians and that there were many 
white people killed by them during the past year?" 

"Ah, no, no, no. The governor misunderstands 
me. I did not comprehend his questions perfectly 
and said 'yes' when I ought to have said 'no.' The 
Carlisle Indians go on the warpath every fall and 
kill a good many of our college boys, but that is 
called 'football,' and of course it is not to be re- 
garded seriously." 

Our voyage was "triste" (sad), as my Spanish 
friend remarked, with no music, and no variety in 
the very heavy food. Besides the people gathered 
into cliques that did not mingle. There were some 
Spanish families on ship whom I should like to 
have met. As to one family I recall that the senora 
had been beautiful and was yet handsome. She had 
a big crop of youngsters, all fine looking and the 
daughters of twelve years or more had faces such 
as one seldom sees out of pictures. These people 
kept to themselves and their manners among them- 
selves were charming to see. I could hardly be- 
lieve that they. had ever lived in Patagonia; prob- 
ably they had made a voyage south to escape the 
heats of autumn in Buenos Aires. This line of 



172 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

land of Tierra del Fuego, where there is a penal 
colony. 

BUENOS AIRES AGAIN. 

"April 4: At Buenos Aires again. Coming into 
the crowded dock this morning, we had a good idea 
of the enormous magnitude of the shipping industry 
of this port. It was good to see again a city, a news- 
paper, an apple and a supply of fresh linen." 

Life in Buenos Aires was rather pleasant for 
a time. I stayed on the Avenida at Chacabuco Man- 
sions, a palatial looking hotel conveniently located. 
Life there was quiet and comfortable and not ex- 
pensive — $7 per day in Argentine paper. An Ar- 
gentine hotel differs from an American in that there 
is usually no lobby or large office. Chacabuco Man- 
sions consisted of several floors, which we reached 
by aid of an American elevator. Each floor was 
complete in itself and had its little sitting-room or 
parlor, dining-room and bedrooms. The floors were 
all of handsome tiles ; in fact, wooden floors are 
seldom seen in South America. They make there 
fine and often beautiful mosaic tiles of cement and 
villages even will have their little tilemaking fac- 
tories. In the Mansions there were but two rows of 
rooms; one looking on the busy Avenida and the 
other out over roofs at the back. The building ap- 
peared a palace from the Avenida and was large 
enough to have contained 300 rooms, or more, in 
North America. I think it had about sixty rooms, 
on all its floors. Naturally it was more comfort- 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 



173 



a 

o 
mo 

l-H 



SS- 



©| 

oa 




174 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

able than had it had 300 rooms, for as a rule they 
were of good size and airy. 

HOTEL LIFE IN BUENOS AIRES. 

Each floor was a little community unto itself, 
with a few small Spanish maids to keep it in order, 
a boy porter, a small dining-room and tiny Spanish 
waitresses. The kitchen was somewhere aloft and 
the little seiioritas called their orders very audibly 
up the dumb waiter shaft. The manager was an old 
German-American who kept himself considerably 
in the background, although he was successful in 
making the hotel run smoothly and orderly. It was 
at first a wonder to me where they had secured so 
many maids and all of them so diminutive. I have 
not traveled in Spain, but I assume that there must 
be a good supply of rather short, prettily formed, 
but undersized people there, since I saw many of 
this type in Argentina. They had very good man- 
ners and lacked the crudeness that one so often 
sees in North American girls in similar occupa- 
tions. They could some of them read, and I used 
to see Spanish novels lying on the table of a little 
waiting-room where they were permitted to sit when 
not busy. I quote from my journal: "Our little 
dining-room has six tables only; the outlook is on 
the beautiful and wonderful Avenida. There are 
pretty pictures on the walls, and all is very neat, 
clean and quiet ; the United States hotel atmosphere 
is lacking. I have perfectly delicious little meals. 
Their cocinero (cook) will land safely in heaven I 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 175 

feel sure, for he does his duty like a man and 
brother. The little seiioritas who wait on us are 
dainty, with pleasant manners and sweet tempers. 
One of them has golden hair. Whence came that 
golden hair? I like her best of all, for she is sunny 
and bright and sincerely interested in the guests. 
She has a musical voice and I can understand her 
Spanish quite well ; also she takes the trouble to ask 
me the English words for napkin, fork, spoon and 
so on, and proudly repeats them to me when she 
presents me with them at the next meal. 

A MARKET IN BUENOS AIRES. 

"Our manner of life is like this: I usually take 
a long walk in the early morning, dropping in at 
a great market on my way back. The market is 
most interesting, especially in its fruit stands where 
one sees apples from Argentina, Australia and 
North America. Apples cost 20 cents each, paper 
money. Then there are fresh delicious figs, oranges, 
and peaches and glorious grapes. The oranges are 
small but good; there are no grape fruits south of 
the equator. It is a fine market, to which come 
many senoras with large baskets and also many 
children, taking home food. The peddlers come 
here, too, in the early morning to stock their hand 
carts. There are in these markets unnumbered 
millions of flies. Some day some patriotic Argen- 
tino will banish flies from the markets of Buenos 
Aires and his countrymen will erect to his memory 
monuments at every plaza. At present the flies are 



176 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

said to be great carriers of disease to the people 
of the town. 

''Usually I would buy a few figs or grapes which 
I would carry with me to the breakfast room. Cof- 
fee, or 'agua caliente' (hot water) when one pre- 
fered, with a roll and butter, made the morning 
meal. No one eats more in Argentina. Breakfast 
came at noon ; here all would assemble ; earlier peo- 
ple dropped in one at a time or not at all, many 
having their coffee served in their rooms. Dinner 
comes at night; dinner is the meal of the day. As 
I began my day earlier than the others I dined 
earlier, and sometimes alone. 

DINING AT CHACABUCO. 

"I have on my table a little cruet, not larger 
than a big apple, containing bottles of vinegar, 
olive oil, pepper and salt. When I appear the se- 
norita, whom perhaps I ought to call the criacla, 
gives me a smile and a 'buenos tardes,' then goes 
to the dumb waiter shaft and calls, 'Domingo! Do- 
mingo! sopa por uno' (soup for one). It comes to 
me in a silver bowl, delicious soup, too. When this is 
nearly finished her silvery voice floats again up 
the elevator shaft, 'Domingo! Domingo! los prim- 
eros,' which means the first course, of fish, and 
afterward 'Domingo! Domingo! Los segundos,' 
and so on through the dinner until finally you hear 
'Domingo! Domingo! Los ultimos' and know that 
the dessert is coming. I had forbidden her to bring 
me any meat, which perplexed her greatly; she 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 177 

brought me a fine salad instead of crisp, curly let- 
tuce, then, shyly and coaxingly, the leg of a fowl, 
which I laughingly sent back to the kitchen. She 
retreated rapidly after having served me, but 
peeped through the crack of a half -closed door, for 
she always came promptly when I had finished a 
course. I prefer this to any hotel in which it has 
been my good fortune to live for any considerable 
length of time. ' ' 

Chacabuco Mansions were not exactly a fashion- 
able hotel ; the grand ones in the city cost up to $30 
per day, but none of them is better located, nor 
could they give much more of real comfort. "We 
had interesting society, too, since the official classes 
of the various states used to stay for days or weeks, 
bringing their families. I recall the governor of 
one of the states and his senora and rather numer- 
ous and beautiful children. I enjoyed sitting quietly 
and observing them, pretending to read the "Na- 
cion" daily paper and listening to their conversa- 
tions. The manners of the youngsters were perfect; 
the seiioras looked thoroughly womanly and the 
sehors were strikingly handsome men, with curled 
mustaches and flashing black eyes. Occasionally a 
young woman and a young man would sit at a table 
together. I assume that they must have been en- 
gaged to be married and that her mother was in 
the corner of the room, else it would have been most 
improper. I would sit and listen to their conversa- 
tion, meanwhile pretending deep interest in my 
newspaper. I did not usually know what they said, 



178 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

nor did I much care ; it was the manner and the 
tones that fascinated me. 

SPANISH CONVERSATION. 

The Spanish manner is radically different from 
ours. In these conversations no assertions were 
made. Our conversation consists chiefly of asser- 
tions. In Spanish conversation, such as I used to 
hear between senoritas and senors, the woman's 
voice would be as sweet as that of a bird, and her 
every saying ended with a pretty rising inflection, 
with a question, sweetly deferring all her little ideas 
to his superior masculine judgment, as "It is a lit- 
tle warm the night — no?" "The theater here is 
better than at Rosario — no!" "The horses at Pal- 
ermo were beautiful today — no?" and so on. Had 
I daughters I should, no matter what the expense, 
import a Spanish teacher who could aid them in 
developing the soft, sweet voices, the nice manners 
and the little deferring lift to their voices. Then 
I know that they would be irresistible. 

The telephone in the hotel was a curiosity, as 
is every telephone outside of the United States, for 
that matter. One needed time and courage to get 
connected with anyone by telephone. You began by 
turning the little crank and ringing a long, long 
time. Then you called, ' ' Sehorita ! Senorita ! Senor- 
ita ! Alio ! Alio ! Senorita ! Dame numero cuatro 
cinco tres. Numero cuatro cinco tres," very dis- 
tinctly, then louder, "Numero cuatro, cinco, tres. 
Senorita, Senorita! Desea numero cuatro, cinco 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 179 

tres," and so on, for minutes and maybe hours. I 
gave up before that time and walked to see the man. 
It was quicker. Incidentally I got a clue to why I 
had not sooner had reply in my attempts at tele- 
phoning. I was talking with an official when his 
telephone bell rang. He calmly continued the con- 
versation. Again the bell rang, yet he heeded not 
but calmly conversed with me. When the bell rang 
the third time I curiously remarked, "Senor, did 
not the telephone call!" "Si, si, pero no importe" 
was his reply ("yes, yes, but it is not of impor- 
tance"). Perhaps that illustrates a type of Spanish 
character, a courtesy to the one present; a neglect 
of the one out of sight. 

THE AVENIDA, 

The Avenida is a new street, perhaps not a mile 
long, reaching from a lovely little park down by the 
harbor to a lovely plaza and park in front of the 
government house. It is a wide street with wide 
sidewalks, which are clean, smooth and slippery. 
Full of carriages and automobiles from nine in the 
morning until daylight the next day, it is one of the 
busiest streets in the world. There is little heavy 
traffic on the Avenida. When it rained the smooth 
asphalt was exceedingly slippery, so that I have 
seen four cab horses lying flat in front of my ho- 
tel at one time. 

Most of the streets in Buenos Aires are narrow, 
with sidewalks much crowded, and trolley cars that 
run so close to the pavement that one steps from 



180 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

the curb to the car. At first it is a bit terrifying to 
have them pass- so close to one, but I neither wit- 
nessed or heard of an accident. As the blocks are 
small the car lines and wagon traffic as well are all 
in one direction in any street, excepting the Aveni- 
da, so that if the cars do not run in the right direc- 
tion on one street one may pass on a short way to 
the next street and find them running in the op- 
posite direction. There is one street of especially 
fine shops. This is Calle Florida. In this street 
all vehicular traffic is suspended after four o'clock 
in the afternoon ; then it is filled to the center with 
foot passengers, elegantly dressed women and men 
being numerous. If one wishes to find a person of 
distinction in South America one has only to watch 
Calle Florida; sooner or later the sought for friend 
will be promenading that street. 

LIFE IN BUENOS AIRES. 

I have no intention of writing much of city life 
in South America, although, after all, it is a most 
important part of that life — far more so than in 
our land, since the country is nearly uninhabited 
and will perhaps be always so, and because it is the 
desire and ambition of every Argentino to live in 
Buenos Aires. It is a city with more than a mil- 
lion and a quarter population and is growing rapid- 
ly, with comparatively little apparent employment 
for those who must labor. There are human con- 
ditions in the city of which I do not approve. Doubt- 
less there is little about mvself of which the Buenos 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 181 

Airians would approve, for that matter, yet I find 
this entry in my journal: 

il I have suddenly begun to observe an astonish- 
ing thing. The faces of the women whom I meet 
in the streets are placid, untroubled and unworried. 
I have not seen here more than six care-worn, anx- 
ious faces, and they were the faces of English and 
American women. I do not know the secret of life 
here, nor what it is bringing forth, but any life that 
leaves the women unwearied and untroubled must 
have good in it. It is in strange and striking con- 
trast to the drawn, haggard, nerve-worn faces one 
sees in any city in North America." 

I wonder why? I can guess. The woman of 
South America does not get up very early in the 
morning; she does not get breakfast, for the family 
does not eat breakfast, in the North American fash- 
ion (and is healthier and happier for abstaining) ; 
she moves calmly, somewhat leisurely; she has 
usually maids to help with her household tasks ; she 
reads little and the things that she reads are not 
likely to harass her soul with desires for unattain- 
able things. She belongs in a certain station and 
knows it and calmly accepts it. She goes every day 
to church and says her prayers ; she knows how to 
instill deference, love and obedience into her chil- 
dren; she has a healthy body and she probably 
never overworks. 

If women do not overwork, what of the men? 
In government offices the hours are from one to 
five. There is time in the afternoon for tea. It was 



182 • IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

a frequent case for astonishment with me when I 
learned that this man, or the other, could not be 
seen before he had his breakfast, at noon. An 
American put the matter to me facetiously in this 
way: "These people ought to be healthy; they 
never work between meals. ' ' I quote again from my 
diary : 

SENORA X. FROM BOSTON. 

"I met the Seiiora X., her husband and children. 
She is a North American girl, a Bostonian. She 
came to Argentina after she was sixteen, a few years 
later married Sehor X. Now she actually resembles 
a typical Spaniard. The speech, habits of thought, 
and association with these people have effected this 
change in the woman. Her husband is a fine, stal-. 
wart, devoted husband. Two senoritas (one four 
and the other six years of age) were beautifully 
dressed. Each one was conscious of her clothes, and 
as careful of them, and her deportment and demean- 
or, as though she were really an adult. They were 
like little wax dolls. They sat properly in their 
chairs; they held their hands properly; there was 
no difference save in age and size between them and 
the other senoritas several times their age. I must 
say their manners are charming; they are delight- 
ful little folk to see, but do they never romp and 
play like children? Really there seems here but 
two ages : babyhood and youth. There is no child- 
hood between. They are either babies or senors 
and senoritas." 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 183 

What are the most durable things on earth? Are 
they the mountains, built of granite, and the sky 
scrapers, the cunning work of men's hands? Not 
at all. ' The enduring things are the customs of 
people. This is especially true of people of the 
East, of people with Moorish traditions. Hereon 
hangs a tale. A young Englishman met in Buenos 
Aires a very charming senorita, and during their 
brief acquaintance asked her to attend the opera 
with him. To this she graciously consented. Seats 
at the opera were sold at an outrageous price, and 
the young Englishman received only a moderate sal- 
ary; yet he rejoiced at the thought of associating 
with this wondrous senorita, if for only a few hours 
and at great cost. When he presented himself with 
his carriage to escort her to the opera house he 
found her ready, and her mother, also dressed and 
ready, at her side. All at once it dawned on him 
that a Spanish woman does not permit her daughter 
to go unchaperoned to places of amusement; he 
blushed at his lack of thought and pretended joy at 
taking also the mother with the daughter. At the 
door he excused himself for a moment and ran to 
the box office and secured the only remaining seat 
in the house, in an obscure place, far from the 
other two seats. He was, however, relieved and 
supposed that certainly the mother would accept 
this seat and he would sit beside the senorita of 
his dreams, but alas ! the mother and daughter 
calmly took seats together and the unhappy young 
man sat raging and furious through three hours of 



184 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

perfect music that had cost him near a month's 
salary. He escorted the ladies home in glum silence 
and made no attempt to carry the acquaintance 
further. 

YOUNG ABGENTINOS. 

I quote again from my journal: 

"April 7. My army blanket and my fur coat 
have been the two most useful things that I have 
brought to Argentina, for now the nights are cold 
and the mornings chill, and hotels have no fires in 
them. I therefore sit in my room and write 
wrapped in my fur overcoat. I have met a number 
of young men ; two came to offer their services as in- 
terpreters ; others I met in various ways. They 
have a charming courtesy, in rather marked con- 
trast to what we have among young men at home. 
There is not the bluntness or the scramble to get 
past each other, and never the curt and cruel word 
that is all too common with us. No one here seems 
ever to pride himself on his ability to say sharp, 
unkind things of others. I wonder if I shall miss 
this when I return to North America, and say my- 
self things that will make my friends dislike me? 
I wish that' I could make our North American boys 
see that courtesy is the flower of manhood, and 
is more to be desired than learning or riches. It is 
the essence of culture. 

"However, the young men here have their tri- 
fling faults and temptations. . They are given money 
with which to buy cigarettes when they are six 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 185 

years old; they are overfed with meat, given tea, 
coffee and wine to drink and are not always taught 
that social purity is necessary or desirable. Nor 
are they taught that manual labor is honorable ; in 
fact, the reverse is the conception here. Well, those 
lads have ambition, wonderful patriotism and love 
of country, appreciation of music, art and beauty, 
kindness of heart and charming courtesy. If these 
could be grafted on some of the stern virtues of the 
North, what a splendid result would be attained. 
The thought is a fascinating one to elaborate. 

THE SHOPS OF BUENOS AIRES. 

"The shops of Buenos Aires are many of them 
very fine ones. One can find the latest Parisian 
fashions sooner than one could find them in New 
York. In truth, this country is nearer Europe than 
are we, in effect, for the influence of Europe is here 
paramount. One can hardly say that there is much 
that is Argentinian, unless one goes to the camps 
or country. Literature, arts and fashions find swift 
transportation from Europe, and the influence of 
Paris is supreme." 

I must here mention the curious misconception 
that we North Americans have of the relation that 
we bear to the South American countries. We 
often assume that we are elder brothers, friends, 
protectors and all that. We feel that their civiliza- 
tions and their governments are much like our own. 
We assume that they look at us with mixed feelings 
of reverence and affection. I do not see how we 



186 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

could miss the truth wider than that. We are not 
older than they. Sao Paulo, in Brazil, was a city 
in 1533. Buenos Aires and Montevideo also are old 
cities. True, the greatest development of these 
countries has come within recent years and there are 
yet immense areas awaiting settlement, especially 
in Brazil and northern Argentina. They have had a 
civilization, too, that to their mind was in some ways 
ahead of ours, although they admit lacking mate- 
rial things, railways and all that. Then their gov- 
ernments do not much resemble ours except in 
theory. Their constitutions are often modeled near- 
ly like ours. It is said that their laws are beautiful 
laws. They have, too, in some things a profound 
respect for law. 

GOVERNMENT IN SOUTH AMERICA. 

. In the conduct of the affairs of the country, how- 
ever, they take into account the fact that the com- 
mon people are hardly fit for representative govern- 
ment. Elections in some of these South American 
States are things to make one smile, and sometimes 
a president is exceedingly hard to dislodge from of- 
fice. Argentina does not indulge in revolutions ; the 
leaders have too much invested in lands and stock — 
too much at stake to permit revolutionists to rav- 
age; nor does Brazil indulge much in revolutions. 
Insurrections are unhappily too common in some of 
the smaller states like Paraguay and Uruguay, and 
they represent usually only the desire of some 
strong, selfish man to gain power and some other 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 187 

strong, selfish man to retain power that he already 
has. I cannot see that the people are ever consid- 
ered except as means to further the selfish ends of 
the revolutionists. 

I met many of the men in the government of 
Argentina, chiefly those under the minister of agri- 
culture. These men correspond with the men in our 
department of agriculture. Some of them were un- 
commonly intelligent, earnest and sincere, eager to 
do things to advance Argentina. I suppose it is al- 
ways the way that the best men find themselves 
placed in this class of work and its pursuance 
develops the best that is in one. Some of the men 
had been educated at our agricultural colleges. 
They would like to do things and do them well. The 
minister of agriculture at the time that I was there 
was Dr. E. Lobos. Keenly intelligent and alert, 
deeply earnest, with high ideals and ambitions, he 
was a man of whom we would be proud in the 
United States. He told me of some of the things 
that he dreamed of doing for Argentina — improve- 
ment in the cultivation of corn, alfalfa, oranges and 
apples ; the installation of a bulletin service ; the 
reform of the land laws, so that the poor man could 
have as good a chance as the rich. His program in- 
cludes many other capital suggestions. 

If Dr. Lobos could have been given power and 
continuance in Argentina he would have accom- 
plished great good. I think he angered their con- 
gress by some sort of investigation into the affairs 
of the land office and that his term was cut short. 



188 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

Differing from our custom, the cabinet officers are 
sometimes called in before congress and publicly 
questioned. It is in a way a censure, and it may 
compel the minister to resign. I must tell a little 
story of my relations with Dr. Lobos; it will serve 
to illustrate a deplorable situation. 

AN OFFICIAL AND A BIG PEAR. 

Early in my Argentine life I got in touch with 
the minister of agriculture, and he, very courteously, 
ordered an interpreter to be placed at my disposal 
and every kindness be shown me. In return he made 
this request: "Seiior Wing, when you are out in our 
camps, if you see anything that might be of interest 
or value to me, will you not kindly communicate it 
to me?" I assured him that this would be a pleas- 
ure and proceeded to so do. I sent him a long com- 
munication on the possibilities of apple-growing in 
Chubut, another on cotton-growing in the Chaco, on 
a better method of corn culture in Santa Fe and so 
on, a number of rather carefully prepared papers. 
Also down in Chubut I secured for the minister the 
most enormous pear that I ever had seen. I car- 
ried it in my bag for weeks until at last I came to 
Buenos Aires, when I sent it to him as illustrating 
the fruits of Chubut. 

Now I had not sent my various communications 
directly to the minister, but to one of his offices, 
where they were to be translated and handed to 
him in Spanish, as he does not read English per- 
fectly. One day, after weeks and months had 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 189 

passed, the minister, hearing that I was in the city, 
sent for me. We had a pleasant conversation about 
my journeys, during which something impelled me 
to ask, "Dr. Lobos, did you find the pear good?" 

"The pear, Seiior Wing; what pear!" 

"Why, the enormous pear of Chubut that I sent 
to you." 

"Why, Seiior Wing, did you send me a pear? 
I had not heard of it." A dreadful thought flashed 
over me. 

"Dr. Lobos, did you receive the communication 
on fruit-growing in Chubut?" 

"No, sehor; I did not." 

' ' Nor the letter on cotton-growing in the Chaco ? ' ' 

"Assuredly not, seiior." 

"Why, Doctor, have you then received no com- 
munications at all from me on the development of 
your country?" 

"None, senor. " 

I could see that he was growing angry. He 
pushed a button with great vigor ; a clerk appeared ; 
the doctor gave orders that at once all my letters be 
rescued from the files, translated and brought to 
him. The pear could hardly be rescued. Later the 
man who should have before done all this took oc- 
casion sorrowfully to tell me that the doctor was 
mistaken; that all of my communications had been 
promptly translated and sent to the minister. I 
tell this story to show the difficulties that even a 
good man like Dr. Lobos labors under. In justice 
to his subordinates, I add that with office hours as 



190 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

short as they are, it is a wonder that they get as 
much done as they do. 

WE ARE NOT ELDER BROTHERS. 

The South Americans do not look upon us as 
elder brothers ; they do not especially like us ; they 
do not know very much about us. The Spanish war 
affair and our annexation of Porto Rico caused them 
grave apprehensions. They do not understand us. 
I read in their newspapers during the early weeks 
of the Mexican revolution, when it appeared possi- 
ble that we would intervene in Mexico, the prophecy 
that we would send our armies to Mexico, if we 
dared do so; that it was doubtless our policy to 
absorb the countries of Central America one by one 
and by the time the Panama Canal was finished rest 
our southern boundary on its shores. 

The newspapers of a land are responsible for 
much that is pernicious. What informing reading- 
must have been in some of the South American 
newspapers during the Spanish war. A young Ar- 
gentine remarked compassionately to me, "Your 
navy did not come off very well during the Spanish 
war, did it?" 

"Why, I do not know; I thought we did fairly 
well ; just what do you mean ? ' ' 

"Why, that your guns could not hit anything," 
he replied with perfect sincerity. I smiled; it was 
not a cynical smile either. 

If the Spanish newspapers slightly err in re- 
gard to North American doings, what can one say 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 191 

of the English newspapers of Buenos Aires? Dur- 
ing the discussion of a possible intervention in 
Mexico by the United States, I learned from the 
"Standard" that it was most improbable that we 
would intervene for the following sufficient reasons : 
We had no army. We had no capable officers. We 
had no courage. We were, in short, so rich, so fair- 
ly besotted in wealth, through no virtue of our own, 
but because the inherent riches of our land made 
us so without our effort, that we were mired in 
sloth and effeminacy, and were incapable of putting 
an army of fighting men in the field or of officering 
them if we put them there. Much more that was 
equally uncomplimentary could be condensed from 
the same source. 

Newspapers in all lands are the great teachers 
of the people. I would that they were always true 
and kind. I realized how little interest is taken in 
the United States in this land when I read the scan- 
ty news items. If there was a railway accident with 
a' considerable loss of life a few lines were cabled 
down. Some political news also was printed, but 
I read every word and went always hungry for real 
news from home. However, I hoped that President 
Taft would not intervene in Mexico. Let them fight 
it out. The entrance of our army into that land 
would cost us dear in trade in South America. It 
must have taken rare courage on the President's 
part to write that proclamation advising our citi- 
zens along the border to hide themselves from Mexi- 
can bullets and thus make it not imperative to in- 



192 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

tervene. It required far more courage than to have 
sent an army over the border. I must here give a 
bit of experience in securing an interpreter. 

MY INTERPEETER. 

In Buenos Aires Dr. Jose Leon Suarez was chief 
of the division of Ganaderia or cattle breeding. He 
made every effort to procure for me a suitable 
interpreter. His secretary, too, Dr. Alberto Paz, 
was unwearying in his attentions. Dr. Paz was edu- 
cated in the United States ; he was therefore hearti- 
ly glad to be of service to me. Interpreters of suit- 
able character were difficult to find. I had a most 
amusing experience with one whom I engaged tem- 
porarily. Never mind his name ; he was one of the 
longest and thinnest young men that I have ever 
seen, with large, soulful eyes and a black mustache 
that was really too much of a drain on his vitality; 
it was so luxuriant. He was the gentlest of souls, 
the pink of kindness and courtesy, a university boy 
and, unhappily for me, an artist. Together, we had 
amusing times. We would make an appointment to 
meet at some hour. He usually arrived consider- 
ably later and always expressed astonished sorrow, 
1 ' Oh ! Is it then so late ? I only stopped a few min- 
utes to gaze at some pictures in a shop window. 
Oh, I wish you could have seen them; the colors 
were exquisite." 

Well, we went to various railway offices to in- 
quire about trains and routes. It is not a simple 
matter traveling on some lines in Argentina, as the 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 193 

trains do not run every clay, though of course they 
do run every day on the main lines. My interpreter 
carefully noted down the details in a fine, new note- 
book that I had bought for him. After half a day 
of this work we went to breakfast and afterward 
consulted the notebook. The lad had forgotten what 
any of the facts or figures meant. I had, however, 
enjoyed his company very much. We would be 
hurrying along Calle Florida, when he would sud- 
denly break across the street. "Come here, please, 
Mr. Wing; here is such a lovely print in this win- 
dow! Isn't it an exquisite piece of work? Won- 
derful ! ' ' 

Poor boy; he was not meant for a business ca- 
reer, and I soon learned that he was not strong 
enough to endure the hardships of travel. Happi- 
ly then the government found for me a young Ar- 
gentino, Dr. L. P. Garralian. He had lived and stud- 
ied in the United States ; his English was good ; he 
was intelligent, companionable and kind. Together 
we traveled several thousand miles. I am not sure 
that I was always so courteous as I ought to have 
been during our companionship. I am sure that 
Dr. Garralian was true to his Argentine traditions. 
I feel now that I must have been at times a most 
trying companion. 

"Let's go!" was my exclamation as soon as I 
had the doctor. "But, Mr. Wing, we can go no- 
where now. This is Holy Week, the estancieros 
('ranchers'), are entertaining company; men hunt 
or visit; nothing will be done this week." It is true. 



194 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

Men in South America do everything during Holy 
Week except go to church ; the women, I am humili- 
ated to say, do that for them. 

I had, however, certain inquiries to make that 
would take me to Rosario. There I could spend 
some time before going to the estancias (ranches). 
We therefore took a train for Rosario. On the 
train we found a crowd of people and with difficulty 
got seats in the dining-car. It is a custom in Ar- 
gentina to sit in the dining-cars, only getting up 
after one has finished one's meal and not then un- 
less there seems need to give some one else a place. 
The breakfasts on these cars are very good, with 
rather more of meat than a North American de- 
sires. Frequently, we would be served with five 
different sorts at one meal. 

We emerged from the suburbs of Buenos Aires 
into the open country, the "camp." The suburbs 
include some fine parks and plantings, with palatial 
residences embowered in trees in certain favored 
quarters. The camp comes rather near the city. 
Along the railway from Rosario to Buenos Aires 
one does not see so many cattle as one would see 
farther west; there were many fields of wheat and 
corn, and yet we saw wide pastures, bare at the time 
of my visit, with sheep nibbling about and cattle; 
the cattle were thin in flesh and indeed many dead 
ones lay unburied in the fields. The drouth had 
lasted for more than a year. All vegetation was 
burned up. Sheep survived because they would 
paw away the earth and eat the very roots of the 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 195 

grass, or gather up the little seeds of bur clovers. 
Sheep are very tenacious of life. 

THE ARGENTINE PLAIN. 

The Argentine camp, as it exists over a region 
embracing many thousands of square leagues to the 
north, south and west of the city of Buenos Aires, 
is a level plain, absolutely flat and featureless. 
There are not as a rule even shallow watercourses 
in the plain; nor are there lakes, marshes or hills. 
One can ride for a day and not see a trace of where 
water ever has run. It is perhaps the most level 
tract of land in the world. All that saves it from 
becoming an impassable marsh is that there is not 
enough rainfall to make it a marsh. There are 
watercourses or rivers here and there, but they are 
insignificant and widely separated. I have ridden 
for half a day without seeing a channel where water 
had seemingly ever run. Once the plain was cov- 
ered with the tall grass of the Pampas; now that 
has been destroyed by the plow and in some in- 
stances by digging it out, clump by clump, or by 
pulling the clumps out with oxen. Now the plain 
in a moist time is covered with fine annual grasses 
and bur clovers. In times of drouth the black soil 
is everywhere visible. 

The eye roves restlessly over the plain, seeking 
some distinguishing objects. No trees are near the 
railway; in the distance, however, there looms up 
a stately grove, almost a bit of forest, at the estan- 
cia headquarters. The trees are eucalypts which 



196 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

grow with amazing rapidity, excelling those of Cali- 
fornia. Trees twenty years planted may be 100 feet 
high or more. Astonishingly rich is the black soil. 
It lacks only moisture and cultivation to make it 
break out in prodigous vegetation. We passed by 
many a farm which was poor, dry and desolate 
looking — merely a field, a small house of adobe 
bricks with a roof of galvanized iron, and near the 
house a collection of farm machinery standing. In 
the field perhaps the stubble was of wheat or maize, 
short, stunted and earless during this year of drouth 
and disaster. These are the chacras or farms of the 
" colonists," as tenant farmers are called. These 
farmers are chiefly Italians or Spaniards, perhaps 
newly come to Argentina. The landlord is lord of 
many thousands of acres ; he apportions to the col- 
onist a tract of perhaps 400 acres and may fence it; 
the colonist builds his own house, making the bricks 
of native earth where the house is to stand and fur- 
nishing the roof, the door and window. He has 
nothing else, no wood for floor and no ceiling and 
perhaps no partitions between the enclosed walls. 
The colonist buys North American riding plows, 
brings his oxen or mules, plows widely, tills slight- 
ly, sows, waits and reaps. If he is fortunate, he 
secures a crop of wheat or maize. Of this he re- 
tains from 70 to 80 per cent. After he has tilled 
the land for a few years, it becomes weedy, and 
often the landlord sows it to alfalfa, moving the 
tenant with his iron roof, his window, his door, his 
collection of machinery, his working stock and his 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 197 

wife and children. This man is reputed lazy, but 
he hires no labor, if he can avoid it, and works hard 
before and at seeding time and then rests until 
harvest, when again it is a time of strenuous en- 
deavor. 

THE WOEK OF THE FARMER. 

One sees American gang plows, drawn by two 
yoke of oxen or four horses or mules; sometimes 
one plow follows another, the father in the lead, the 
son behind, a daughter perhaps behind him, then 
the wife, like as not, and I have even seen the moth- 
er-in-law riding the' plow. If the helpers are too 
young or too old to turn the plows about at the end 
of the field (the field may be a mile or more long), 
the father obligingly waits there to turn them all 
about and start them on the next furrow. It will 
be seen that the colonist usually does not remain 
long enough on the land to plant trees, if he is so 
inclined, and so the country, apart from the envi- 
rons of the headquarters of the estancias, is bare 
indeed and so very wide that the eye wearies in 
looking off so far. Our train stopped long at each 
station, as do all trains in Argentina, thus giving 
trains a chance to arrive on time, which they com- 
monly do. The locomotives are usually English; 
the cars are somewhat of the pattern of those in 
North America, with aisles down the middle and 
seats on the sides and entered at the ends. 

At wide intervals I saw a strange sort of tree, 
not large, and perhaps forty-five feet high ; if it was 



198 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

a large one, it had a dense and rounded green- 
ness of head, with a trunk thick and short, spread- 
ing out at the root most curiously, so that some- 
times it might extend for many feet in great couch- 
ant rounded root or trunk masses, sometimes resem- 
bling a reclining beast. This is the ombu tree and 
under its shade have happened many notable events 
in Argentina. Once, indeed, it made about all the 
shade known in the pampas, outside houses. The 
ombu comes through Spain from Africa, but it has 
become naturalized in Argentina, so that people 
there consider it a native. In truth, there were 
originally no trees native to the pampas ; none could 
exist there; the huge growth of grass and weeds 
was burned off yearly and the furious fires made 
tree-growing impossible. 

A CAMP TOWN. 

The little cities far apart along the way were 
strikingly alike. They were for the most part one- 
storied plastered white-walled houses, built flush 
with the streets, with a little shop in every corner, 
and perhaps a grocery store (the almacen), or a 
drug store (the botica). The streets are wide, dusty 
and usually unpaved." Every little camp village has 
its plaza or park. However, with trees, even if they 
are dry and dusty and perhaps stunted, they look 
interesting in a land so short of trees. The glimpses 
of the great plantations of trees at the estancia 
headquarters were entrancing; they- made one to 
feel that there was much worth exploring. 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 199 

From Buenos Aires to Rosario is a distance of 
about 200 miles. One would not think it a long way 
with North American train service, but some good 
trains are between these two principal Argentine 
cities, although the one we were on took nearly all 
of one day to land us in Rosario. My most vivid 
recollection of the day's journey is of the terrible 
effects of the drouth, the dead horses lying in the 
roads, the dead cattle in the fields and the fields of 
maize so burned up that it did not seem as though 
they would return the seed planted. And this turned 
out to be true in many instances. 

ROSARIO. 

Rosario presented us with a great boulevard 
or stretch of park, finely planned and planted, with 
palms, eucalypts and many other trees, and also 
shrubs and flowers. It was all dry and dusty, how- 
ever, and I complained to Dr. Garrahan, "Why, 
these people are careless; it is inhuman to let the 
plants suffer for water; why do they not irrigate 
them from the city water mains?" 

"Because, Mr. Wing," replied the patient doc- 
tor, "all the coal for the pumping of water at the 
waterworks is brought from England, and it is 
therefore very dear; besides, the land is thirsty 
and the sun has been fierce." 

I was ashamed ; vividly was impressed on me 
the unwisdom of criticising others before one knows 
their conditions. In the omnipresent carriage we 
drove to the Gran Hotel Italia, exceedingly well 



200 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

kept, as are many of the best hotels, by superior 
Italians. It was a finely built hotel, with marble 
staircases and a patio or inner court filled with 
plants and flowers. The rooms were clean and com- 
fortable and good food was accompanied by efficient 
service. 

It was yet Holy Week; few men were at home. 
We met some who were of use to me. Among them 
was Dr. Fermin Lejarza. What a curious thing is 
type, and how universal. The doctor is a lawyer 
(abogado), and also a large land-owner. Excepting 
that he was rather more polished in his manners 
and better dressed, he strikingly resembled an in- 
telligent and prosperous American farmer. From 
him I learned much about the Italian colonist's way 
of growing maize (Indian corn). Once he sowed 
it broadcast; now he drills it with our American 
drills, sometimes with the wheat drill, 'stopping 
some of the holes, but putting rows no more than 
two feet apart. Recently planting has been done 
with American corn planters. They cultivate once 
with a harrow and call it "bueno." The doctor says 
that the farmers commonly lie down to sleep after 
getting their maize planted, awaiting the harvest. 
This is a climate as hot and dry as Oklahoma's. 
Land in the best maize-growing country is worth 
from $50 to $75 an acre. It is marvelously fertile 
due to the deposits by the Rio Parana, which once 
flowed over all the provinces of Buenos Aires. The 
doctor told me that sometimes his rentals amounted 
to as much as $9 an acre from his share of the 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 201 

maize crop; more often it was $3 to $5 an acre, in 
United States money. Two years in the past twen- 
ty j^ears lie had seen drouths that had made the 
crop a total loss. Drouths must be reckoned with 
in Argentina; they are the more serious because 
the cultivators have not learned the principles of 
dry farming, with frequent cultivations, as prac- 
ticed in the United States. 

Kafir corn seems not to be at all grown, al- 
though one would think that, as it would afford 
the colonist a sure crop which he could feed to 
his animals in the event of a severe drouth, he 
would plant small areas of it. I think, however, 
that the proprietors would discourage its use, see- 
ing that there is not now a good market for Kafir 
corn in Europe. 

Considering drouths, we remember that in 1830 
there occurred in Argentina a drouth so terrible 
that millions of animals died; in fact, nearly all of 
the horses, cattle and sheep of Argentina perished, 
especially in the province of Buenos Aires. There 
was neither water nor grass, and dreadful clouds 
of dust swept the parched plain. That was be- 
fore the day of wells, windmills, fenced pastures 
and alfalfa. Such conditions will likely not soon 
be seen again. 

THE THRIFT OF THE COLONIST. 

The colonist succeeds because of his thrift and 
his avoiding every possible outlay. He works his 
family instead of hiring labor. He lives in a mud- 



202 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

walled hut with often no chinmey and seldom a floor 
other than the natural earth. He is in some in- 
stances required to pay a cash rental in years of 
crop failure, a share of usually 25 to 35 per cent 
of his crop to the landlord. Sometimes he accumu- 
lates enough to buy a small farm or chacra of his 
own. Often he works many years before he accom- 
plishes this. There is now a great rage for land 
speculation ; many great estancias are being cut 
up and sold in small parcels to such men as these 
colonists. Ordinarily they pay from $25 to $75 per 
acre for such farms ; they buy in tracts of 40 to 
100 acres. Today a somewhat despised class, there 
is no doubt that the small farmers are destined 
in a short time to be the dominant factor in Argen- 
tine country life. In a large part, they will possess 
the land. They keep almost no live stock; with 
the coming of the colonist cattle and sheep leave 
an estancia, the chacereo keeping only his working 
animals — a cow or two, a few sheep that he con- 
sumes, and possibly a few pigs. He could become 
a great producer of pork, but he does not; he has 
perhaps not the right blood, nationality, instincts 
or training to make him a stock-farmer. 

Englishmen and Americans who have undertak- 
en to do grain-farming in Argentina have usually 
failed, sometimes disastrously. They could not 
keep down the expenses, as the Latins can. With 
stock-farming the case is quite different. English- 
men and Americans have nearly all made money 
at stock-raising. 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 203 

EIO PARANA. 

What a huge river is the Parana. It is said to 
flow a volume of water two and a half times that 
of the Mississippi. It looks even larger. It does 
not now flood its banks, excepting in certain re- 
gions. Great ocean steamers come to Rosario. Be- 
cause of the depth and width of the river and its 
keeping nearly the same level, steamers lie at 
wharves to discharge and take on cargo. Many 
steamers, mostly tramp steamers, were at anchor 
at Rosario; some were from the United States and 
were disgorging enormous quantities of our red- 
painted American machines. Returning to Europe, 
they would take little or no maize this year; instead 
they would transport wheat, hides and quebracho 
wood for tanning. 

I quote from my journal: "I love to ramble 
along the quaint old streets near the riverside and 
see strange plants peeping over garden walls or 
growing along the bluffs. It was today (April 15), 
awfully hot until a shower cooled the air ; it is per- 
fect now. I hope the fearful drouth may be brok- 
en. We have met many business men of the city, 
and been to their rural association club rooms. It 
is a fine type of business man that we find in Rosa- 
rio, the Chicago of the southern hemisphere. It is 
astonishing how kind and courteous every one is, 
all helping me as much as is within their power. 
The living at the hotel has put me in splendid con- 
dition ; eschewing the meats, I live on soups, salads 



204 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

and fruit and feel like a baron. Pomegranates are 
excellent here and seem wholesome. There is fine 
music at the hotel. I dropped in to the great ca- 
thedral just in time to see the great veil of black 
dropped, hiding the altar. It was a high veil, as 
the church is lofty; it was dropped from a balcony 
aloft and is left hiding the altar during the time 
that the crucifixion took place. I must drop in on 
Easter to hear the music. The church bells have 
lovely tones; one hears them calling before day. I 
cannot help recalling Easter Sundays at home — the 
snowy vestments of the choir of boys and girls in 
our little church, their sweet voices, their good 
faces, and our wholesome minister radiating health 
and spirituality. How little one appreciates one's 
best things until one loses them." 

We visited a cabana or breeding establishment 
near Eosario, where were magnificent Hackney 
horses. I enjoyed the horses and the energetic 
Frenchman who showed them to us. He was of 
the familiar type seen in the Perche country, and 
little changed by his transplantation. The carriage 
for the long ride to see the cabana cost but $3, in 
paper, or about $1.27 in United States money. Our 
hotel was not on the side of cheapness, however, 
but the reverse. 

ESTANCIA SANTA EOSA. 

Eoklan is not far from Eosario. It is in a typi- 
cal region of rich, black soil. Near Eoldan is Es- 
tancia Santa Eosa, belonging to Albide & Sanchez. 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 205 

We went out by train on a Sunday morning. As 
to its environment, let me say that a wide road 
runs through a country that is much like the land 
in Nebraska about Hastings. On either side were 
cornfields with stunted, drouth-smitten corn, with- 
out ears. The rows of corn were but two feet apart. , 
On one side of the road was alfalfa, green but short. 
Rather stunted eucalypts grew along the roadside; 
the road was very wide. Our drive was of five 
miles. In the distance loomed up a fine grove, sur- 
rounding the estancia buildings and the house of 
the manager. We passed many country folk in 
two-wheeled carts going to church. These were 
the Italian colonists, an intelligent and dependable 
people. They were dressed in their best, for it 
was Easter Sunday. As they had lost their crop 
they did not appear to be jubilant, as one would 
reasonably expect. As we neared the estancia head- 
quarters, I looked interestedly at the trees. Many 
were of the familiar China berry type, common in 
our South. These trees thrive in Argentina because 
they endure drouth and are not eaten by locusts. 
There also were many eucalypts and many shrubs 
and fruit trees, orange and quince, were laden with 
fruit ; the garden was no doubt irrigated. 

To my astonishment our driver dared not ap- 
proach the house, although a fine drive led that way, 
but took us back to the corrals and barns. The 
manager was absent for the time. There were 
great barns and stables, and in them some very 
high-class Short-horns and handsome draft horses. 



206 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

The men were washing the bulls as though prepar- 
ing for the showring. There were splendid sheep 
in pens in an airy shed adapted to their use. All 
these animals subsisted on alfalfa, cut fresh every 
day. I am not sure that I have ever seen better 
Short-horns or Lincoln sheep than were here kept. 
It was curious to me to note the air of suspicion 
and semi-hostility displayed by the capitaz (fore- 
man) toward us. It was possibly because he, a 
Spaniard, took me to be an Englishman. After a 
time the manager returned and gave us what facts 
and figures he could as to the expense and profit of 
keeping Lincoln sheep on these rich and valuable 
lands. It turned out that the land is recognized as 
being too valuable for agriculture to be kept longer 
for grazing. Steadily the pastures of native grass 
are plowed and steadily grow the corn and alfalfa 
fields. When we had our facts and figures, as well 
as we could get them (the books of the estancia be- 
ing kept in Rosario, and the owners not at home), 
we drove back to the railway. It had been a fine 
morning. A cold wind began to blow, chilling us 
almost to the bone, and reminding us that April 
16 in Argentina was not the beginning of warmer 
but of colder weather. Fall was passing swiftly 
away. 

The estancia Santa Rosa is in the midst of the 
best of the maize-growing and alfalfa-growing re- 
gion of Santa Fe. The land is extraordinarily fer- 
tile and productive when there is sufficient rain. 
Unfortunately the two dry years just past nearly 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 



207 



destroyed agriculture here, temporarily, and the 
fields of maize that we passed did not look as though 
they would yield or had yielded any crop whatever. 
The alfalfa was also short. It was being pastured 
by large herds of cattle. 




A PRIZE-WINNING LINCOLN* RAM AT BUENOS AIRES. 

The general aspect of the land is level, with rich 
fields, and small trees by the wayside. The laud 
is much of it under the care of Italian tenants. Al- 
falfa is usually harvested by the land-owners. We 
have in America very little land intrinsically so fer- 
tile as this, when it has rain. This estancia has in 



208 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

it about 22,195 acres. There are 10,000 cattle and 
12,000 to 14,000 sheep on the place. The cattle are 
Short-horns. They are much of the time on alfal- 
fa pasture. Viewing the bulls in use, I found them 
wonderfully good. The sheep are Lincolns with a 
slight infusion of Down blood. The rams are pure- 
bred Lincolns, in part imported and of good qual- 
ity. Land values advance steadily; they did not 
decrease even with the drouth. On 100 hectarias 
(one hectaria equals 2y 2 acres) or about 250 acres 
the manager places about 960 sheep. This is on 
natural camp, with a mixture of coarse and fine 
grasses and a sprinkling of weeds, one of which, 
the romeryllo, is poisonous to sheep not accustomed 
to it. 

Lambing time is in June; owing to cold, the 
manager does not save more than 50 lambs from 
100 ewes. There was no disease in the flock during 
the past two (dry) years; previously, there was 
some stomach worm trouble. The sheep are on 
natural camp; the rams are fed alfalfa; the ewes 
never fed or watered. The wool is in a manner 
skirted; that is, the belly wool is taken off and sold 
at half price. The wool brought this year for the 
main flock $7.25 per 10 kilos or 14% cents per 
pound, United States currency. The yearling wool 
brought 121/2 cents per pound. Wethers for the 
frigorifico brought at the estancia $3.08 each, and 
fat ewes $2.42 each, United States money. The 
manager dips the sheep four times a year, using 
one of the coaltar dips. His dipping plant is of 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 209 

concrete, with a long swim. Following is an esti- 
mate of a year's operations: 

100 hectarias of land (250 acres) $14,300 

Dipping plant 700 

Well and wind mill and troughs 800 

Building for rams and shearing galpon 250 

Total investment in equipment $16,050 

960 sheep 2,400 

15 rams 375 

Total investment $18,825 

Following is an estimate of the expense of oper- 
ation and income for the year: 

Wages, with food, for one man $254.00 

Shearing, all costs . '48.00 

Dipping, four times 200.00 

Extra help in lambing 50.00 

Of administration; capitaz and bookkeeper. . . . 50.00 

Repair of fence 50.00 

Use of wind mill, wells, troughs 75.00 

Interest on dipping plant 10.00 

Salt 20.00 

Alfalfa for rams 120.00 

Land tax, $4 per M 57.20 

$934.20 
Income from 960 fleeces, averaging 7 pounds, 

6,720 pounds, at 14 cents 940.80 

250 "capons" (wethers) 770.00 

Total $1,710.80 

AN EASTER DAY PARADE. 

I quote from my journal: "We came back to 
Rosario in time to see in the principal street of 
the town the Easter day parade of carriages. There 
were two lines of these carriages, one passing in 
each direction, many of the carriages were fine and 
the horses good. In the carriages were elegantly 



210 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

dressed ladies and gentlemen, bowing and smiling 
as they met friends. I like Eosario! it is not so 
grand as Buenos Aires, but it is a fine, busy, push- 
ing city, and unless I have been exceptionally 
lucky in meeting people, it has an unusually intel- 
ligent, courteous, enterprising class of people. Also 
a hotel. How I wish I could carry this with me 
around the world." 

SANTA FE. 

We were up early the next morning and boarded 
a train for Santa Fe, which is higher up the river. 
It was a long and crowded train, for people were 
going home from their holidays. Many branched 
off and went on up to Tucoman, far in the north, 
where there is an ancient colony and civilization 
with much modern enterprise. Also there are su- 
gar plantations. It was cold enough on the train 
for me to wear my fur-lined overcoat all day. I 
quote again: "I enjoyed the ride very much, with 
the good midday breakfast in the dining-car. Along 
the way were wide perfectly level flat fields, often 
of maize, extending as far as the eye could reach, 
and alternating with alfalfa, which was a cheerful 
green in contrast with the burned maize stalks waist- 
high. Along the fences were miles of Chinaberry 
trees. Suddenly when we were near Santa Fe we 
came to groves of small, stunted trees, scattered 
over the plain, the beginning of a forested area, 
the 'chaco,' that reaches northward to Brazil. The 
trees were not close-set at first ; grass grew between 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 211 

them. Here one finds the Texas fever tick; here 
one sees an abrupt transition, too, in the cattle. 
Now they are no longer the finely-bred Short-horns 
that we saw in the south, but more scrubby sorts, 
as one sees in our own Gulf States. The wood of 
the little trees is durable. Some of the wood, that 
of the quebrachos, is as red as blood. It is also 
nearly as heavy as iron. From these forests go 
fence posts to fence all of Argentina. They are not 
straight posts, but are everlasting in the earth. I 
need two suspender buttons. I must find the words 
for them in my pocket dictionary." 

THE INTERVENTION IN SANTA FE. 

Santa Fe is a fine little city, the capital of the 
great rich state of Santa Fe. There is almost a 
revolution on ; the government at Buenos Aires has 
intervened, is in charge of affairs and will order 
new elections. The story of this affair illustrates 
well political life in Argentina. At the risk of hav- 
ing misunderstood and being inaccurate, I will give 
it as it was told to me. The state of Santa Fe is a 
rich state, lying along the Rio Parana and having 
two principal cities, Rosario and Santa Fe. There 
would have been keen rivalry between the two cit- 
ies had not Rosario so great a natural advantage ; 
it is nearer the sea and has deeper water for ships. 
Naturally, therefore, Rosario soon vastly surpassed 
Santa Fe in commercial importance and growth. 
Santa Fe, it seems, devoted much of its energy to 
politics and, being the capital, managed to retain 



212 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

a firm grip on the government. There was much 
complaint at Rosario that its port was neglected; 
that money was spent lavishly in building magnifi- 
cent docks and other harbor works at Santa Fe, 
while Rosario suffered by reason of a lack of such 
things. Large ships cannot go to Santa Fe, so it 
seemed an economic blunder to try to build a great 
port there. Meanwhile Rosario with its pressing 
needs was neglected. And all this, I was told, was 
because the governor and some others were elected 
from the city of Santa Fe. 

"Well, but why did you not elect a governor 
from Rosario? You have the voting strength to 
do so," I asked. 

"Because," my informant made haste to an- 
swer, "the government at Santa Fe would not per- 
mit it. We repeatedly nominated candidates from 
our part of the state, but when the •election was 
held and the ballots were counted we were always 
found to be defeated. Mind, senor, I am not say- 
ing that there was any robbery there; only it is 
strange that always the ballot boxes were found 
to hold a majority of votes for the candidate at 
Santa Fe." • 

Always it seems the government was in the 
hands of one family, a rich and highly intelligent 
family. It was in a sense hereditary. One man 
would hold the governorship as long as seemed good 
to him, then hand it down to a son or a nephew or 
some one within the charmed circle. That worked 
well enough for a time, but unhappily the family 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 213 

was too prolific, and the young men became too am- 
bitious. There came a time when certain of the 
younger men wished to become governor, but an 
old man held the office, refused to relinquish it and 
insisted on renomination. There were, however, a 
lot of the nephews and grandsons in the legislature; 
they rebelled and refused to appropriate funds for 
cariwing on the government. That meant of 
course a deadlock ; nothing could be done ; the cen- 
tral government at Buenos Aires had to intervene, 
appoint a temporary governor, investigate all the 
affairs and order a new election. ' ' And I will wager 
they found a prettj" mess in the treasury when they 
investigated that," I remarked. 

"On the contrary, senor, the funds in the treas- 
ury were intact and a searching investigation 
showed not one bit of irregularity. These people 
are honorable people ; they may manage to steal 
an election from Kosario, but they take pride in 
administering the government honestly, once they 
have it in their hands." 

As a side-light on Argentine political life this 
story is suggestive. It has, in fact, tremendous 
significance. Not so very long ago the country 
would have been plunged into civil war over such 
an episode as this ; now there is no talk of revolu- 
tion ; the trust is yet in the ballot to cure all ills. 
Doubtless the Argentine government is imperfect 
and it may take a period of evolution and educa- 
tion for it to emerge into a state of high efficiency 
and moral probity. Nevertheless there are here 



214 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

and there found in that government men of splendid 
qualities of honor, intelligence and ideals, for such 
men I learned to know. Their whole thought was 
for the people of Argentina and their advancement. 
Some of these men have my profound sympathy; 
they struggle against great difficulties in a land 
where many of the official class are of a quite dif- 
ferent order. 

SANTA FE AND ITS GAEDENS. 

Santa Fe is a well built, clean little city, with a 
good river front and fine stone docks. The river 
is miles wide and some ocean steamers come for 
maize, the chief article of export, apart from que- 
bracho wood, which is very rich in tannin and tans 
a large percentage of the leather of the world, go- 
ing to Europe and North America for that purpose. 
There were many pretty gardens and orchards at 
Santa Fe. Oranges, by the way, thrive from south 
of Buenos Aires north to the limits of the republic. 
The patio of our hotel was shaded by a fine grape 
vine and a few palm trees. We continued to enjoy 
magnificent grapes and large pomegranates, which, 
however, are best eaten in a bathtub. They are most 
refreshing and healthful. 

There was so much excitement politically at 
Santa Fe that we could not find the men to whom 
we had letters of introduction, and Dr. Garrahan 
thought it wise to escape the turmoil and go where 
we could find affairs less disturbed. Accordingly 
we arranged to cross the river into the state of 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 215 

Entre Bios (between rivers.) I quote from my 
diary : 

CROSSING THE RIVER. 

"April 18, I am on the river; it is fully eight 
miles across, with islands in the channel. The wa- 
ter flows strong and is yellow in color. They say 
there are immense fish, something like our cat fish, 
in the river. All the vast plain of Argentina is 
perishing of thirst, with this enormous river so 
little below the land. The difficulty in irrigation no 
doubt is that there is not descent enough to let one 
take out a canal without a dam, and .to dam the 
river is an inconceivable thing. Fuel for pumping 
is high in price. Some day sun engines will pump 
water to irrigate millions of acres ; they have al- 
most unlimited sunshine during the crop-growing 
season. The little steamer is very comfortable and 
if one is in the sun and wears an overcoat one is 
warm. It is difficult to get accustomed to the idea 
of winter coming on, now that May approaches. I 
just had a curious side-light on Argentine condi- 
tions when a pleasant young Englishman and his 
sweetheart passed me on the deck. A young Span- 
ish acquaintance said, 'Diable! I hope those two 
are not going the same journey that I am going.' 

11 'Why?' I asked in wonder. 

" 'Because I hate the English and dislike to 
travel with them,' was his very frank reply. Pinned 
down, he confessed that the reason for his dislike 
of the English was their very blunt and needlessly 



216 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

outspoken way of expressing their opinions of Ar- 
gentina and more especially of Argentine people. 

' ' The shores of Entre Rios drew near ; there were 
high banks at Parana, and the land of Entre Rios 
proved to be not flat but rolling, the little city pleas- 
ant and interesting and the hotel good ; then we 
took a train southward to Gualleguay, a good-sized 
provincial town in southern Entre Rios." 

TWO DAYS IN ENTRE RIOS. 

We had a letter to Alberto C. Bracht of Estan- 
cia "La Peregrina." We dropped off the train at 
Gualleguay and went tired to bed. It was April 
19 when we awoke; the air was crisp and cool. 
They do not turn on steam or order fire in hotels 
in Argentina ; guests dress in a hurry and get out 
and walk in the sun. Some of us did not get up be- 
fore midday, when it was warmer. As for me, I 
made haste to get out to walk in the streets of 
quaint Gualleguay while the doctor was dressing. 
Orange trees and palms stood up above the garden 
walls, and roses bloomed — great sumptuous roses 
such as we grow only in California. I wore my fur 
overcoat, but children went bare-legged. I am no 
longer a child, so I kept on the sunny side of the 
streets. An Argentine town is not at all like a'town 
in North America. There are few lawns or outdoor 
gardens, in the North American sense. Here and 
there great eucalyptus trees grew behind walls. We 
saw large pear or fig trees ; oleanders bloomed 
sparingly; grapes made shady arbors in patios. 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 217 

There was promise in the air, for was it not mid- 
April, and had not the long delayed rains come at 
last? 

I was especially pleased this morning because I 
had a conversation or two with men in the streets, 
and they understood several words of my lame 
Spanish, and I understood enough _ of what they 
told me to follow their directions to the central 
market, where I bought apples and oranges from an 
honest man who refused to be overpaid or to let 
me take suspicious oranges. Then in high spirits 
I hastened back to the hotel. An Argentine morn- 
ing meal followed; it consisted of two small rolls, 
butter, a pot of tea for the doctor and of hot water 
for me. I began by eating several rolls for break- 
fast and wishing for more, for the bread of Argen- 
tina is the best that I have seen. Within two months, 
I was eating only part of one roll and was satisfied. 
The Argentines eat but twice a day — really, once, 
and that at midday. I think there are no dyspep- 
tics and assuredly the people are well nourished. 

Having drunk our tea we sallied out and acquired 
some rather disturbing information. La Peregrina 
was twelve leagues distant. It was not certain that 
Senor Bracht was at home; assuredly he would 
soon leave for Buenos Aires. Our landlord found 
us a carriage owner who would drive us over, but 
he asked us $40 for the. trip. It would take eight 
horses and alfalfa was worth $12 per ton. The 
telephone was out of order and we could not learn 
whether Senor Bracht was certainly at home or 



218 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

not. There was but one way to learn, go and see. 
We ordered breakfast as soon as we could have it; 
while we were eating, our coach came clattering to 
the door. We drove four wiry horses abreast, as 
is the local custom. Four others for a relay had 
been already despatched ahead to a halfway point. 

ON THE EOAD IN ENTRE BIOS. 

That wide road from Gualleguay to San Julian 
was a wonder. The road between fences nearly or 
quite 100 yards wide, unmade, seldom having been 
touched by the hand of man, was good for the most 
part, and we made fair speed, the driver urging the 
horses continually. At first we went through a 
region of small farms, with trees about the houses, 
barns of plastered brick, whitewashed, and white 
walls about the home places. Little fields of alfal- 
fa were delightfully green, for it was April, and 
rains had recently come. We passed a great ca- 
bana, too, or place where pure-bred sheep are 
bred, with its splendid buildings of brick, gleaming 
white, its paddocks, its rows of towering eucalypts 
and its avenues of paraiso or China trees — the 
trees that we use so much in our southern states. 

The lay of the land was not flat ; it rolled in gen- 
tle sweeps up to the horizon on either side, long 
slopes of miles, yet never so steep as to suggest hills 
and every inch of it black as a prairie in Illinois; in 
fact in texture and color it resembled the best soils 
of Illinois and perhaps surpassed Illinois in fertil- 
ity. Nowhere else have I seen land that suggested 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 219 

so graphically the plow, exuberant fertility and rich 
harvests. And do they come? We shall see. As we 
drove along I would perforce spring out of the car- 
riage now and again to gather delightful little 
spring flowers that pushed up through the dark 
earth. There would be whole fields of bright yel- 
low blooms, lying close to the earth. The fields on 
either hand were soon as wide as the eye could 
reach, unfilled for the most part, and over them 
roamed cattle and sheep. 

What an abundance 1 of animal life this rich 
black earth feeds. There were enormous holes in 
the ground where dwelt the vizcacha, a beastie, sug- 
gesting a cross between a woodchuck and a Tam- 
worth pig. Its industry is prodigious; the animal 
must have palaces under the earth with very spa- 
cious dancing halls, judging from the amount of 
earth it brings forth. It is hard to kill, as it comes 
forth usually at night and yet sometimes persists in 
dwelling in the very center of the highway. Occa- 
sionally we saw tame ostriches in paddocks. I think 
the wild ones are nearly exterminated. The num- 
ber of birds was extraordinary. Most common was 
the teruteru, something like a curlew; it walks 
proudly about over the prairie as though it owned it 
and often flies toward, instead of away from one, 
as though inquisitive. Then there were the owls, 
dozens and hundreds of them, not in flocks but in 
pairs, as are our North American prairie owls. They 
look cheerful and seem to believe that they own the 
earth which they inhabit. They have the same wise 



220 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

look as our owls, but I am informed that they are 
often otherwise. We amused ourselves by shooting 
(harmlessly) at these birds with a revolver as we 
passed them, just to show our good-will. Then 
there are great beautiful birds like long legged 
eagles that stalk proudly over the prairie. There 
also are partridges and doves in flocks. The doves 
look much like our turtle doves. Also there were 
white birds with cardinal heads and in trees I saw 
flocks of green parrots. Some of them could speak 
two languages, I was told. 

Once we passed a line of paraiso trees, six 
miles long, beside a field, and once we saw the 
work of a steam plow that had just begun to turn 
furrows in a field at least three miles long. Once 
we met an American gasoline tractor that came 
rumbling by, going on an errand of mercy to weak 
horses, to do a job of plowing. Often, too sadly 
often, in the fields or in the road, we saw dead cat- 
tle, sheep or horses, and the survivors' gaunt skele- 
tons wandering about eagerly licking up the green 
grass as fast as it grew, for it was the close of a 
great drouth that had endured for thirteen weary 
months, the worst since forty years ago. 

The grass springing up through the rich black 
earth was fine, short and sweet, like our bluegrass, 
though I have an idea that it is annual grass and 
not a perennial, except where the camps have not 
been plowed ; there one sees tall, coarse grass in 
tufts a foot or two high in April. It is not liked 
much by animals. It is the " strong" grass that once 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 221 

covered all the land and that has been subdued by 
plowing*. At half-way we overtook our spare horses, 
change was made and we hurried on. It was near 
sunset when we turned into the gates and wide past- 
ures of La Peregrina. Ahead stood splendid 
eucalypts ; they had been in sight for the last hour, 
sheltering the estancia buildings. And, new to me, 
to our left was a monte or park-like expanse of 
trees, set wide apart. They were spreading trees 
like large and untrimmed apple trees. Between 
the trees was in one place a wide expanse of yel- 
low wheat stubble, a lovely combination of green 
and gold. 

Splendid Short-horn cows we passed; they were 
thin, and ahead were the great brick, white-walled 
barns where were the pure-bred bulls, and a little 
beyond we saw the beautiful gates of the park of 
La Peregrina. A group of noble pines, without 
foliage, stood near the park gates ; within were 
many trees, from palms and eucalypts to fruit trees, 
and a large and fine house. 

LA PEREGRINA. 

Sehor Bracht came forth to give us a hearty 
South American welcome, our weary horses were 
sent to the stables and we were taken inside. The 
first room was like a deep American porch, the 
length nearly of the house, and sixteen feet wide. 
It may have been left open at one time, but now 
was enclosed, mostly with glass. Here was the of- 
fice of Seiior Bracht; here also were fine pictures, 



222 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

witli more books about country life than one often 
sees on a farm, and English, French, Spanish and 
American agricultural periodicals. There was too 
an American heating stove, with plenty of fuel. 
How I surrounded that stove, and how Senor Bracht, 
seeing my appreciation, filled it with wood to the 
very top of it. The next room had a cheery open 
fire. Besides us there was a guest from Belgium, 
a young man who spoke English, and the manager, 
who spoke French and Spanish best. At the table 
that night the conversation was in English, French, 
Spanish, German and United States. We ought in 
the states to be ashamed of our poverty of speech. 
Why, we seldom can as much as speak English. 

What happy dreams we had that night. Senor 
Bracht was glad to have us with him and so cour- 
teous and willing to give us the information that 
we needed. The mere fact that we had found him 
a cattle rancher and not a sheepman seemed a tri- 
fling thing, but then he had in any event 5,000 sheep, 
just for his own and his laborers' tables, and 10,000 
cattle. Early in the morning we were afield with 
Senor Bracht driving a pair of Hackneys that tore 
over the prairie or dragged us flying across the 
hollows. They were splendid horses of wonderful 
mettle. "What do you feed these horses?" "Alfal- 
fa, and alfalfa alone, no grain," was the reply. We 
drove league after league, seeing the gaunt cattle, 
the rich earth through which the soft green grass 
peered and the alfalfa fields on which the cattle 
eagerly grazed. The alfalfa could not get a start, 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 223 

since it held too many hungry beasts. If only, the 
meadows had a month's rest all might be saved, but 
how? In all the land not a haystack could be 
bought ; remember, there was no rain for 13 months, 
and there was an awful plague of locusts too. 

"These cattle are strong; they will come through 
all right; it is already nearly May," I remarked, 
encouragingly. "Yes, but you forget where you 
are; it is winter that is coming, not spring. May 
is often a very cold month ; we can hope for very 
little growth after this time ; frosty nights will soon 
begin to come. I expect to lose half or more of my 
cattle." I shuddered at the thought. "Is there 
nothing to be done?" I asked. "Nothing. Two 
years of drouth, and locusts worse than ever before ; 
there is no help for' us but to let them die. Next 
year will probably see a splendid harvest and fine 
pastures with fat cattle. Many estancieros I predict 
will lose three-fourths of their animals. This is the 
worst that has happened in forty years." 

The estancia contains in all about like 30,000 
acres and is divided into pastures of from 1,000 to 
3,000 acres each. Then there are thirteen alfa*lfa 
fields each with 300 or more acres. Each alfalfa 
field opens into a pasture of grass. The plan is to 
open one field at a time to the cattle, giving them 
also access to the grass pastures. Thus treated the 
cattle do not suffer bloat. 

"Senor, it seems to me all you need is more 
alfalfa to solve your ranching problems." 

"True, but consider my difficulties. Two years 



224 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

of drouth and then the locusts — I cannot establish 
alfalfa under such conditions. Then all horses in 
the land are weak; I cannot buy feed for them; 1 
cannot plow. I have bought a new American plow- 
ing engine and will set it at work as soon as pos- 
sible; we will try to secure in the future reserve 
alfalfa in stacks so that if another drouth comes in 
my time it will not find us so unprepared." 

What tales of the locusts they told me. They 
come in swarms that darken the sky, coming from no 
one knows where. They devour every green thing ex- 
cept the paraiso trees. They devour the very palm 
leaves. They do not come every year of course. 
They had stripped the bark, but as they were gone 
the trees put out leaves again, though it was April, 
which is their October. The land has a winter like 
Los Angeles, Calif., and a summer like Illinois, only 
with some cool spells and some cool nights and some 
dry years. There are years with forty inches of 
rain; then one can hardly find the sheep for the 
grass, and everything in nature is fat and happy. 
The growth of vegetation is then riotous. 

We talked of the colonists from Italy, Russia 
and Austria. They rent land, paying usually 25 
to 35 per cent of their crops in rental. They grow 
maize, wheat, flax and alfalfa. Often they make 
money, then go elsewhere and buy land of their own. 
They plow, harrow, drill in maize and usually never 
touch it again with cultivator or hoe. It yields from 
nothing to eighty bushels to the acre, according to 
rainfall. Sefior Bracht told me that where manure 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 225 

was put on the land it spoiled it for agriculture, 
making it too rich. 

This land was perhaps as fertile as any that I 
have ever seen. Alfalfa is sown with wheat in the 
fall, April or May, March or June — it matters little 
when, if rain comes. They have a bitter maize 
that locusts will not touch, and yet it is said that it 
has as good grain as any. Cattle eat the stalks and 
blades after they are dried, when the cattle are 
hungry. It seems to me the people have much to 
learn. They have Kafir corn, Egyptian corn and 
Milo maize to test. They can grow Johnson grass 
splendidly. They need thousands and thousands of 
people to till this land, each settler with large flocks 
of fowls; then the locusts might disappear. They 
do not now trouble Kansas (but they do Colorado). 
Nature has assuredly given a wonderful land in this 
of Argentina, and the land of Entre Eios seemed 
to me the most charming. Barring locusts one there 
can have apples, pears, peaches, pomegranates, 
palms, roses, oranges, wheat, corn, alfalfa, flax, 
oats, barley, horses, cattle and sheep. It is a land 
of plenty, when these pests are absent. 

It was at La Peregrina that I received my first 
astonished realization of what sheep mean to the 
Argentine. "You must understand, Mr. Wing, that 
I do not have sheep for profit at all; we keep them 
merely for consumption on the place," remarked 
Senor Bracht. "But you have 5,000," I said. "True, 
but even with that number the increase is all eaten, 
and we may buy some; there usually are no fat 



226 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

sheep sold." Then it was that I learned that it 
is the custom to allow to each peon (laborer) one 
sheep per week for his use. I assume that Senor 
Bracht supplies the colonists also with mutton. He 
told me of the early days of this estancia, and how 
on its 31,250 acres it carried 90,000 sheep. These 
nearly ruined the grass by eating it too close. It 
now carries 10,000 cattle and but 5,000 sheep. Nor- 
mally the grass would improve under such moderate 
stocking. There are 850 horses on the place; they 
are of excellent breeding. Mr. Bracht had sold his 
wool on the estancia for 18 cents per pound. He 
was using Romney rams on Rambouillet ewes, and 
the result was very good. His wethers, had he 
sold them, would have been worth $1.60 each. He 
found that it would not do to allow the sheep to 
graze in the alfalfa meadows, as their close biting 
killed the crowns. He paid shearers 2y 2 cents per 
head and the flock clipped about 6 pounds of wool 
per head. The wools of Entre Eios are not at all 
greasy, so they are light; but our buyers prefer 
them for that reason. 

I left La Peregrina and its charming host and 
hostess with real regret. I do not remember ever 
to have met a finer type of man than Senor Bracht, 
a man of the highest intelligence and education, 
practical, thorough and a devoted lover of country 
life and living. I learned later that the winter was 
so mild that his losses were less than he had ex- 
pected. 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 227 

AT LA CABEZAS. 

We drove from Sehor Bracht's to a neighboring 
estancia, La Cabezas, where sheep are the principal 
stock kept. This place was under English manage- 
ment. The sheep were thin but game ; not many had 
died. Naturally they did not look well under such 
conditions; in fact, I felt always like apologizing 
for trespassing on a man when he was suffering 
under such adversities as were these men, first the 
drouth and then the locusts. At La Cabezas, how- 
ever, they had a small garden completely netted in 
with wire, so that locusts could not get in to it. 
Speaking of the locusts, I was told that horses and 
sometimes sheep ate them; that fowls ate so many 
of them that the eggs were quite spoiled and even 
the flesh of the fowls had a rank taste. 

Some bright young English foremen were at 
La Cabezas; the place was interesting; about the 
house it was park-like, with 5 an avenue and many 
trees. One of the young English capitaz remarked : 
"I was down among our colonists today; they are 
busily sowing wheat; but there is one man there, a 
new man and a Belgian, who will not do; he will 
make a failure, sure." "Why, what is he doing that 
is wrong?" "He has harrowed his land until it 
is like a garden. He is a newcomer from Belgium. 
He says he is going to teach the Argentines good 
farming. He will never do for us." I think what 
the young man felt was that the Belgian would not 
get a sufficient acreage sown, using so much care 



228 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

with it. Weary but content we returned to Griialle- 
guay. Next morning we took a train northward, for 
Concordia. I quote from my journal: 

ON A SLOW TRAIN IN ENTRE RIOS. 

"It is a local train and slow, but I enjoy it. 
Entre Rios is like a great park, set with smallish, 
spreading trees with open spaces between them and 
again great grassy glades. The country is green 
from the recent rains, although we see many half- 
starving cattle and sheep. We pass some prosper- 
ous-looking farming colonies, one where there has 
been rain, and men are out gathering maize, as they 
would be gathering it in Illinois. Sometimes men 
and women work together in the fields. We pass a 
Jewish colony, which lo'oks neat and prosperous, 
although its prosperity has thus far come in large 
part from outside aid. We reached Concordia after 
nightfall, weary and hungry, finding no letters from 
home, although we had hoped for them here." 

Once Entre Rios was covered with tall, coarse 
grass, the so-called pampas grass of our garden- 
ers. As soon as the estancieros were able they de- 
stroyed this by plowing it and digging it out; after 
which there came the finer, more nutritious grasses." 
All of this province has a semi-tropical climate and 
grows figs, oranges, palms and other vegetation 
peculiar to such a region. There is, however, fre- 
quent frost in winter. Its rich black soil is usually 
deep and underlaid with soft limestone, from which 
it is derived. Land holdings are usually very large, 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 229 

from one to many leagues. Linseed is considerably 
grown, there being in 1910 a half-million acres of 
this crop, 750,000 acres of wheat and 75,000 of corn. 
There were 300,000 acres of alfalfa and much more 
being sown, 7,000,000 sheep and 3,000,000 cattle. 

IN CONCORDIA. 

Concordia is a quaint old city, green and mossy 
from the rains, and is filled with the indescribable 
air of the sub-tropics. It had an air of languor 
about it and men and women were not much in- 
clined to hasten their steps. My memories of Con- 
cordia are pleasing. We stayed there some days, 
visiting estancieros and wool merchants and seek- 
ing to glean what information we could. I was 
brought in contact with a curious product, an Eng- 
lishman who has forgotten his language. English 
and Scottish estancieros have lived there for so 
long a time that one sees the grandsons of the 
first settlers. Many of the grandchildren can speak 
English only imperfectly and haltingly. 

I have memories of great wool lofts, where 
swarthy peons were sorting wools, and putting each 
class by itself for baling to go to European or 
American markets. I saw some of the very coarse 
criollo wools that came down the river from the 
north, but in the main the wools are good Merino 
and cross-bred types. The cattle about Concordia 
are also good, but not so good usually as those 
farther south. One old estanciero remembered well 
the terrible Paraguayan war, in which he fought for 



230 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

Argentina. The little country of Paraguay was op- 
posed by the combined armies of Argentina, Uru- 
guay and Brazil, and it held out until nearly all its 
men were killed. The old soldier told us how the 
character of the grasses changed as he went north- 
ward, how, when he went with the troop through 
Corrientes bound for Paraguay, there was not much 
difficulty in keeping their horses strong and even fat 
until thej^ reached the region about Mercedes in the 
state of Corrientes; after that the grasses were no 
longer nutritious, being the product of tropical 
rains. How curious it is that drouth makes sweet 
grass the world over. 

Life in Concordia is quaint and restful. While 
it is not at all in a state of decay, yet there ap- 
peared to be but little doing there and men took 
abundant time to do that. I recall the peace and 
.calm of the offices, the streets with no bustle nor 
hurry and the docks rather silent, yet having their 
daily steamers from Buenos Aires, for this is at 
the head of steamer navigation on the Eio Uruguay. 

It was at Concordia that I got my first sight of 
the salederos or salting establishments where the 
flesh of cattle is salted and dried in the sun. These 
are immense establishments, taking in the native 
cattle, mostly in thin flesh, and drying them into 
the salt "jerked" beef . of the tropics. One would 
sometimes see acres of meat out drying in the sun 
and know that it was destined to go to the tropics, 
perhaps to Brazil, or else to the West Indies, usually 
to feed the black men who labor on sugar planta- 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 231 

tions. The cattle that go to the salederos are of 
the original semi-wild Spanish stock, usually full 
of days and empty of much of anything else but 
good, hard, tough meat that no doubt makes "good 
chewing" to the black man who finally finishes it. 
The salederos receive their cattle mainly from the 
tick-infested regions where well-bred cattle have not 
yet been introduced. 

SOUTH AMERICAN STREET ETIQUETTE. 

At Concordia my interpreter companion gave me 
a lesson in Latin street etiquette, which it seems I 
had been violating all these days. "You see, Mr. 
Wing, it is not here considered the right thing to 
do to stop and gaze through the doorways and 
windows of shops. One ought never to stop along 
the street to look through gates into courtyards, as I 
frequently see you do." "What, doctor, may I not 
then 'rubber?' " "To 'rubber?' Please tell me 
what that word means." "Well, you will not find 
the modern use of that word in many English dic- 
tionaries ; it is a good but new American word and 
it means to stop, to turn the head, to stretch the 
neck, to peep, peer, gaze, spy out and examine 
things with curiosity, as though one had a neck of 
rubber. I came to South America to 'rubber,' and 
'rubber' I must." "Very well; I desire that you 
rubber alone ; not in my company, ' ' said the doctor. 
I could not blame the man, but neither could I fore- 
go the luxury of seeing the most interesting sights. 

I saw carts with enormous wheels to which were 



232 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

attached three or four diminutive mules, abreast. 
The cart is a sort of dray that takes merchandise to 
the docks. Sometimes the wheels were so high and 
the mules so small that when the shafts tilted up- 
ward they nearly raised the shaft mule off its feet ; 
it was as though the animals were hacked up to go 
under a little shed. Indeed I used to wonder 
whether it would not have been possible to hitch 
the animals to the axle right under the bed of the 
cart, sheltered there from sun and rain, but there 
must be some reason why that would not be practi- 
cable. Iii fact I feel that I offended the doctor by 
suggesting to him the desirability of that arrange- 
ment. 

From the balcony of our hotel we could see over 
the roofs of the buildings across the street, and in 
some patio see a tree covered with big red blos- 
soms. The flowers were singularly gay and allur- 
ing and I made several leisurely journeys clear 
around the square, peering into every open pas- 
sageway, hoping to espy the particular garden that 
held this marvelous tree and trusting to luck and my 
few words of Spanish to get admitted to its com- 
pany, but I did not succeed; but this I know: the 
tree would live in Florida and Califorina. 

Across the river lay Uruguay and the city of 
Salto. A little steamer plied between the two cit- 
ies. We took passage and soon found ourselves on 
Uruguayan soil, and in one of the quaintest old 
cities of the new world. Rain had been falling in 
fine showers for some days; old stone-built houses 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 233 

with red tiled roofs and white walls were showing 
patches of moss in their crevices and patches of 
greenish-yellowish stains ; little ferns in the crevices 
and on their roofs. The streets were paved with 
cobblestones, between which grasses grew. "Ah, this 
Salto is charming," I cried. "Why, look at it, just 
as it was when Columbus discovered it, I'll bet a 
dollar." "You are wrong, seiior; Columbus did not 
discover Salto," patiently explained my interpre- 
ter. "Ah, yes, he did; I feel sure of it, and it has 
not changed since that day; it is exactly as it was 
when Columbus discovered it." 

"But, senor," wearily, "the reason why I feel 
sure that you are wrong is that Columbus never 
sailed up this river, so how could he have discov- 
ered Salto?" That seemed reasonable, but the in- 
ternal evidence was to me convincing in the other 
direction. We took carriage and proceeded. By 
the way, a carriage costs always one peso, which 
on the east side of the river was worth about 43 
cents in our money, and on the other side $1.03, yet 
I think the cabby makes as much on one side as on 
the other, because on the Argentine side he is 
busier than in Uruguay, which is an illustration of 
the fact that high prices for labor do not always 
mean large earnings. 

As we proceeded up the street my eye caught 
sight of a wonderful tree in a walled enclosure at- 
tached to a dwelling house. The tree was perhaps 
forty-five feet high, with a dense, rounded top cov- 
ered over with delicious lily-like pinkish blooms, 



234 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

as large as Japanese lilies. "Stop," I cried in 
amazement. "Let us go and see that tree," The 
doctor looked at me in annoyed pity. "No, senor, 
I cannot let y©u stop here. I do not wish to see 
the tree, for I do not know the people who live 
there and I care nothing for trees anyway, nor can 
I allow you to stop, for I do not know where the 
hotel is and you would become lost from me." 
"Drive on," was my sulky response, but no sooner 
had we fomnd our hotel than I broke away and 
hurried back to find my tree. As I went I put to- 
gether all the Spanish words that I could recall that 
had any bearing on the case and hoped for luck, 
and luck was indeed with me ; the door through the 
wall that enclosed the yard was slightly ajar. I en- 
tered a little way, looking warily for dogs, and 
stood gazing at the tree. One eye I kept turned to- 
ward the house, the other toward the tree, and pres- 
ently, as I had expected, a servant noted me ; then a 
little later the sefiora herself appeared on a little 
balcony and looked at me. Steadily I contemplated 
the tree, with evident appreciation. The sehora 
drew a step nearer. I went to her then and with my 
best bow said in Spanish, "Pardon me, sefiora, but 
I so much admire your beautiful tree with its won- 
derful flowers. " She saw that I was a foreigner and 
ignorant, so she came down smiling and pleased. 
Together we went to the tree and she told me about 
it, in torrents of Spanish, many words of which I 
could not grasp, but at least when she had finished 
informing me, I knew this : that the tree came from 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 235 

Brazil ; that it was called the cotton tree ; that the 
lower branches were broken off by mischievous chil- 
dren, so that there were now none low enough for 
us to reach. She, however, grasped a bamboo fish- 
ing pole and proceeded vigorously to whale the tree, 
breaking off hundreds of the delicate and beautiful 
flowers until the ground was quite carpeted with 
them; This sacrilege I stopped and, taking the pole, 
I fastened my pocket knife to its end and with little 
difficulty sawed off a branch, laden with half a hun- 
dred great delicate, lovely blooms. These, with 
many thanks to the senora, I carried away, leaving 
her smiling and happy that her tree had been ap- 
preciated. 

My carrying these flowers through the streets 
of Salto attracted a deal of attention. Presently 
I was surrounded by a bevy of bright-eyed smiling, 
eager little girls, each begging for a blossom. As 
I had enough for all I made each one happy and 
carried a good many on to my room at the hotel. 
There I learned that the doctor had let it be known 
that we were in the town — an amiable and useful 
habit of his, and certain men, dignitaries and bank- 
ers of the place came to dine with us at the hotel, 
this in honor of my having a government mission. 
The dinner went merrily forward and when dessert 
was brought I excused myself for a moment and 
brought down the flowers, placing them on the table. 
All exclaimed at their beauty. 

"I am glad, senors, that you are here, for you 
can tell me the name of the tree that bears these 



236 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

blooms and whence it comes, for I feel that it would 
grow in my own land in North America, certainly 
in our California," I said. "But, senor, where did 
you find such flowers as these?" "I found them in 
Salto, down by the custom house." "And you say 
that they grow on a tree?" "Yes; they grow on a 
large tree." "Astonishing. We have lived here 
all our lives, and we have never seen that tree." 
"Well, senors, I am an inquisitive Yankee; I had 
not been in your town five minutes before I had 
spied your tree," I rejoined. 

There is a sad sequel to this tale. A man tried 
to secure the seed of the tree for me, but Salto took 
some unaccountable rage for development; the va- 
cant space where the tree grew was desired for a 
building site, the tree was cut down and I never 
saw another one in all my wanderings. I learned 
later that it belongs to the family of the palo bor- 
racho, the common sort having pale yellow blooms. 
The tree I saw had larger pink and red lily-shaped 
blooms, with orange-colored inner tubes, each flow- 
er a perfect thing and the tree en masse marvelous 
indeed. 

I quote again from my journal: 

BY RAIL THROUGH URUGUAY. 

"April 25: We left Salto early this morning 
by rail, going northward in search of a great 
estanciero of Uruguay whose cattle and sheep are 
as the sands of the sea in numbers. Near the 
city of Salto were many little farms, with orchards, 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 237 

orange groves, stables, cows, pigs and fowls. Soon, 
however, we passed the zone of small farms and 
reached the open camp, or the land of big, fenced 
pastures. It is a picturesque land of rolling plains, 
almost hilly, and usually rather dry, and almost un- 
inhabited, so far as men count. Many wild ostriches 
are seen hurrying away from our train. The cat- 
tle and sheep are emaciated, and there are many 
dead ones along the way. We learn that the es- 
tanciero for whom we search is losing cattle at the 
rate of 100 per day. Because of the recent revolution 
he has not horses enough to enable his vaqueros 
to skin the dead animals. We are so aghast at this 
we do not care whether we find our man or not; 
surely he will not be glad to see us at this time. The 
little train is a curiosity; it is small and light and 
the water tank is so small that every few miles we 
stop to replenish it, so that I remarked to Dr. Gar- 
rahan that it was the tirst train I had ever seen 
that ran by water power. l 

"What picturesque men are the Uruguayan 
camp people. Their trousers are so wide that they 
are fully as large in the leg as are modern fashions 
in women's dress skirts; they wear splendid ihick, 
warm ponchos, too, and look as though they were 
more at home in the saddle than on the ground, 
which is no doubt true. The poncho is merely a big 
thick blanket with a hole in the center through which 
is thrust the man's head. It seems a sensible thing 
when one is riding horseback in the rain. With the 
poncho and the saddle blanket the guacho is always 



238 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

at home; his bed is ready whenever or wherever 
he is ready and all his wealth he carries in a huge 
belt about his slender waist. These men endure in- 
credible exposure at night. I have frequently seen 
them from Punta Arenas to Brazil lying on the 
ground under their carts, with only the thickness 
of the poncho between them and bitter cold — cold 
that would chill me to the bone. They have of course 
undergone acclimation. 

"We send repeated telegrams trying to locate 
our big estanciero, who is, however, so much on the 
move on an estancia as vast as one of our smaller 
states that we at last despair of locating him. The 
whole land is soaked ; rain, so long withheld, is now 
falling in excess of the land's needs. All the land 
is devoted to wild grasses; there is no agriculture. 
I see no valid reason why the land could not be 
sown in part at least to alfalfa; probably it would 
grow corn, too. These must come some day, when 
the revolutions cease and colonists come. Our toy 
train lands us at last at the little village of Santa 
Rosa ; with some peril in a small sail boat we cross 
the Uruguay again in a violent windstorm, with 
waves threatening our little boat and the swarthy 
boatman with bare feet braced against the cleats 
pulling for dear life. We land at Monte Casares 
and the sun comes out from behind the angry 
clouds ; 'all the world is wet ; again the plain springs 
up with all manner of green things, and as I walk 
on the shores of the river the pebbles glow like em- 
eralds." 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 239 

AT MONTE CASAEES. 

Those pebbles were my torment. I would pick 
them up, one by one, examine curiously, marveling 
over the ancient river that tore them from their 
mother bed and rolled and polished them, millions 
of years ago. After a time my pockets would be 
heavy with them; regretfully I would lay them 
aside, for there remained many leagues of travel 
between me and a certain small boy on Woodland 
Farm who likes pretty pebbles. There are tons of 
pebbles in that land pretty enough in coloring to 
be set as jewels. 

Monte Casares is unlike anything that I had seen. 
It is a village of wide streets, carpeted with fine, 
thick grass and grazed by sheep and goats. Perfect- 
ly in Spanish character are the houses, only many 
are yet in rough brick, unplastered, and on each 
street corner there is a little shop where things are 
offered for sale. I came near saying, "things are 
sold." It seems quite a deserted village, so far as 
life or commerce is concerned. It was built I think, 
with grand expectations of being a port. Let us 
hope that it has not yet achieved its destiny. There 
was a soft mellowness in the air, as befitted its loca- 
tion, which is as near the equator as southern Geor- 
gia. In the suburbs happy children wearing short 
shirts played about, and among them were young 
ostriches, caught in chickhood, I assume, or per- 
haps hatched from eggs brought to town by the 
vaqueros. The ostriches were perfectly tame and 



240 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

merely eluded the grasp of the merry children as 
they played. Here I saw many new plants, great 
climbing cacti that covered garden walls with a 
prickly tangle of arms as thick as a man's, and yel- 
low with blooms as large as soup plates. There 
was, however, about the place that indescribable 
air of poverty, sadness and decay that seems indis- 
solubly linked with the tropics. 

At the inn we were fortunate in finding some of 
the leading estancieros of the neighborhood, among 
them Senor Fernando E. Etorena. From him we 
learned that good land in this region was worth 
about $13.50 per acre; that sheep, mainly of Ram- 
bouillet blood, throve during dry years and were af- 
flicted with worms in wet years ; that Romney rams 
were coming in; that to get sixty lambs from 100 
ewes was considered a good increase. His labor 
cost was astonishingly low. The wage scale there 
is from $8 to $12 per month to the peon, with 
shelter, of course and meat, biscuits and mate. The 
sehor thought, however, that the wave of immigra- 
tion would reach him and that then much land would 
go under the plow. It did not look like an alfalfa 
soil, or a land suitable for wheat, but it may grow 
maize fairly well. I know no reason why it should 
not grow cotton. 

"April 26: In the suburbs of Monte Casares 
(the name means Casares' grove or forest) are huts 
of bamboo and thatch set down promiscuously on 
the green plain, with many small flocks of sheep, 
goats and children. The goats' kids stand within 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 241 

the huts and peer out of the doorways, looking 
strangely innocent and domestic. Doubtless they 
share their mothers' milk with the family. There 
are great eucalyptus trees, roses in bloom and very 
early in the morning children start for school car- 
rying books and little baskets with their breakfast 
and lunches. There were ponies being hurried about 
bearing big bags of loaves of good Argentine bread 
and enormous carts, each drawn by four oxen. In 
some of these carts* were families of women and 
children, journeying to perhaps some other land. 
To some of the gardens there were hedges of a sort 
of cactus, with tall, erect stalks as thick as a strong 
man's arm. These things I saw on a brisk morn- 
ing walk while the doctor took another nap. My 
fur-lined overcoat made people stare in wonder, as 
I passed by, but there was nearly a frost last 
night. ' ' 

CURUZU CUATIA. 

"April 26 : We came by train to Curuzu Cuatia 
in Corrientes. It has rained in Corrientes ; in fact, 
the drouth has not been nearly so severe, and now 
the recent rains have made the level plains all a- 
bloom. Imagine a wide plain with park-like areas 
of trees like big apple trees, that is, trees in groups 
and areas, meadowy expanses between of hundreds 
or thousands of acres. This is the monte country, 
or region of trees. Imagine the plain a lively, ten- 
der green from the fresh springing grass and then 
areas of color — sometimes yellows, sometimes pinks 



242 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

or reds, sometimes a blending of those colors. These 
were not small areas of color, but stretches of miles 
of it, and cattle in great droves were eating only 
the blossoms. Nowhere else in the world have I 
seen such a sight, the prairies of the gulf coast of 
Texas in spring being nearest like it. The trees 
are of the acacia family, and are called the Nan- 
dubay, which is pronounced 'nyanduby.' Crook- 
ed although they are, their stems make imperish- 
able fence posts. In all the ride to Curuzu Cuatia, 
I do not remember to have seen one farm, although 
the soil looks black and good. It is, however, hard 
and impervious to water, so that great shallow pools 
stand here and there in the pastures, betokening 
the recent hard rains." 

Millions of little flowers that look like crocus 
blooms, spring up in the grass and along the rail- 
way tracks. Our long ride in the slow train was 
enlivened by watching the people inside the cars 
and the sights outside. Across the aisle from me 
were many children, fat and roly-poly. Their 
mother ignored them, and finally went to sit with a 
mustached sefior with whom she carried on a 
vigorous flirtation while the little six-year-old boy 
held the head of a very chubby and heavy three- 
year-old, both going to sleep, and they would have 
fallen off the seat had I not gone to their rescue. 
There was another and more pleasing family party, 
also with many children, clean in dress and per- 
son, that attracted my attention. 

Curuzu Cuatia is a thriving little city, but not 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 243 

attractive or picturesque. It is set out on a rather 
barren plain of black adobe earth. I walked early 
one morning when it was crisp and cold, with no 
frost and a bright sun. The town has perhaps 
2,500 inhabitants ; in the outskirts live many people 
in mud walled, grass-thatched huts, scattered 
around promiscuously as though they might be the 
dwellings of squatters. In the center of the town 
stands a truly splendid monument to Belgrano, an 
Argentine hero. The monument is a Corinthian 
column, which is tall and supports a female figure 
signifying Liberty. I could not but compare the 
artistic beauty of this monument in this unheard of 
Argentine camp village to the efforts of our richer 
people in American towns and cities, the compari- 
son being not at all favorable to us. 

Out in the suburbs a few little ostriches walked 
about in dooryards. There were not many trees 
nor flowers, since the soil and climate are both dif- 
ficult and since the most of the inhabitants are only 
poor Indians. Our hotel was interesting and good ; 
there were two patios, with rooms surrounding them 
and floors of red tiles ; in our rooms there were neat 
iron beds, fairly free from fleas (turpentine be- 
tween the sheets is the trick to banish fleas in the 
tropics). The windows were French, coming flush 
with the floor, with Venetian blinds and strong bars 
outside for which we are always grateful in a land 
where there seem to be a certain number of cut- 
throats. Perhaps I wrong them, but I feel safer 
behind bars. "We met at the hotel a fine young Scot, 



244 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

G. Norman Leslie, who invited us to view his estan- 
cia and promised to send a vehicle for us the next 
day.. At the appointed time appeared an English 
dogcart drawn by a magnificent carriage horse. The 
peon who brought this equipage led his own sad- 
dle horse and when we started back he rode and led 
the way, himself a picturesque man, swarthy, evi- 
dently of Indian blood. His trousers were so full 
as to suggest skirts, and he wore a gay cloth about 
his neck. He rode a good horse, and seemed a 
part of it. We followed his pilotage out through 
the outskirts of Curuzu Cuatia. The road was 
very wide and untouched by the hand of man ; doubt- 
less it was good in a dry time, and most times are 
dry in that land. But there it had rained; it was as 
though we were in the black gumbo soil of our 
own West, in a wet time, and no roadmaking done. 
I observed a familiar plant, the cockle bur, thick 
along the way. It and the rich black mud reminded 
me of home. Water stood in holes by the wayside, 
and on the plain, beside every little pool, was an 
Indian woman washing clothes — surely not always 
her own — and on every thorny shrub were garments 
drying. Thus do these excellent brown people ap- 
proach to godliness. 

ME. G. NORMAN LESLIE'S ESTANCIA. 

Wonderingly we forded a river twice; it was 
safe, however; we turned in at a gate and came 
down to the estancia headquarters at Los Ingleses. 
First we saw a brick-walled, reed-thatched shear- 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 245 

ing shed and woolhouse, with a tiled floor, comfort- 
able and very cheap (we had found such things in 
Argentina that cost up to $10,000; this one served 
as well as any) ; then we passed the rams' shed with 
the little yards all paved with tiles, to be always 
dry and clean in front ; then we sped on to the long, 
low bungalow where dwelt Mr. Leslie. I cannot tell 
how much I admire this young Scot, for his using 
native material in an inexpensive way and yet se- 
curing both beauty and comfort. His bungalow had, 
it is true, mud walls, yet they were glistening with 
whitewash; the roof was of splendidly made thatch; 
there were wide verandas on three sides and a floor 
of tiles. He could live, and did live, mostly out- 
doors. Within were books, pictures, things to re- 
mind him of home, including an outfit for playing 
polo, for Mr. Leslie was once an officer in the British 
army, stationed in India. 

On the veranda were cages of birds with bril- 
liantly red crests, the South American cardinals, 
seemingly content ; others at liberty hopped about 
near by; a trap, worked by a string, threatened to 
imprison more of them. Fox terriers crowded and 
begged for caresses. In the stunted trees of the 
lawn oven birds called, and other sorts that I did 
not know. The oven bird builds a clay house as 
large as a medium-sized pumpkin, on a gate post or 
a branch of a tree. It is curious to see. 

Mr. Leslie's welcome was cordial and complete. 
His cupboard was thrown wide and we were asked, 
"What shall it be?" and, indeed, it would have 



246 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

needed to be a rare beverage that lie could not 
have supplied, although from his appearance I 
should guess that he keeps them all for guests only. 
Breakfast next, for it was noon and we were all 
hungry. Our host had ridden far that day, for the 
estancia contains 7,500 acres and he had been back 
to some of the outlying places, working with stub- 
born black cattle. 

In the 'cool, dim dining-room we were served a 
meal that made us wonder. It was served by a 
neat and comely maiden. "I have a whole family 
of Italians," explained Mr. Leslie; "they take 
beautiful care of me." As we ate we talked, over 
the coffee and between courses. "This is a good 
country for cattle and for sheep, if one takes jolly 
good care of one's sheep. I find the Shropshires 
do best ; they are hardier than the Merinos and less 
subject to disease. Angus cattle? Father is a 
breeder of them at home, in Aberdeenshire, so I 
thought to have them here. They thrive jolly well. 
I have had a lot of trouble getting bulls out from 
home; they are so apt to die of tick fever, what 
you call Texas fever, but I am getting a start at 
last. I think the best plan is to send the cows south 
to be bred, bringing them back to calve. Yes, I 
can show you 1,500 good Angus cattle. I breed 
Romney sheep too, and they thrive. You must be 
watchful in this country; when it rains too much 
is the danger time ; the sheep may go wrong in the 
feet or get lombriz (worms) ; but you shall see. It 
is a jolly lively life, for I am my own superintend- 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 247 

ent and an. We have 7,500 acres, 2,000 cattle, 6,600 
sheep and 200 horses. I breed race and coach 
horses." 

Then we sallied out, first to see the Angus bulls, 
fat and saucy, and then out into the park (I can 
hardly call it else) that made his range. The little 
trees stood just nicely spaced over the green sward 
so that they looked as though they had been placed 
there intentionally. They had been trimmed also. 
On these trees grew curious striped pods like our 
string beans in the North ; the animals eat the pods. 
We were in the dogcart when we met about 500 
Angus cattle coming. We had seen dying cattle all 
over the parts where we had been, and in Uru- 
guay I had been told of a man who was losing 100 
a day, so naturally I had inwardly smiled when 
told that I should see fat cattle. There they came, 
fat, round and sleek, fit for a show, many of them, 
and testifying splendidly to three things : the abil- 
ity of Mr. Leslie to breed them well, the goodness 
of his range and the suitability of the cattle to it. 
Assuredly I had never before seen so many good 
Angus cattle together. Asked if they bred well, he 
replied that they did, only that now and then some 
heifers would get too fat to breed. 

What a picture the shining, round, black cat- 
tle made in the park of miniature but ancient and 
honorable trees. To myself I said, "His cattle are 
all right, but I know what the sheep will look like; 
this is no place for Shropshire sheep." We drove 
on and presently met the Shropshires coming, some 



248 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

brown-skinned men bringing them slowly up to us. 
Then did I receive a shock from which I may never 
recover. Many of us in North America can muster 
twenty or possibly fifty, or very remotely possible 
200 sheep of which we are proud ; here came a great 
army of many hundreds of splendid Shropshires, 
well bred, very fit, fat, heads up and eyes bright. 
The grass was as green as our grass in spring, and 
pink with little wild flowers, and under the charm- 
ing little green trees the fleeces were white as snow, 
for the hard rain had washed them. There was not 
a sign of disease or scab. 

In South America many estancieros, even those 
of English origin, admit that their flocks have scab, 
even much scab, but contend that it is inevitable. 
But this Scot had not a trace of it, and yet he dips 
four times a year, for he fears his neighbors' flocks 
may be affected. 

We saw Mr. Leslie's great round water tank, 
sixty feet across, walled with galvanized iron and 
filled by an American windmill. We watched the 
men ride two bronchos ; I should think them as good 
riders as ours, and that is high praise. Then we 
secured data on the cost of operating the place. 
Wages were less than with us. He had sold his 
wool for 21!/2 cents a pound, but the clip was lighter 
than it would have been in a cool climate. He was 
making some money, it was evident, but land was 
advancing in value. There was $132,000 invested in 
the land. "Come to see my alfalfa," said he, with 
just pride. Eagerly I went. There were about four 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 249 

acres of it. At present he cultivates no more land. 
It is good, and lie will sow more alfalfa, and also 
Johnson grass. Locusts, Mr. Leslie thinks, make 
general agriculture impossible. 

NORTHWARD IN CORRIENTES. 

From my notebook I quote: "I am on a train 
going north through the province ; now we are pass- 
ing through a great forest of palms. Here and 
there, beside palm-thatched huts, are heavily-laden 
orange trees or little fields of corn. Great long- 
horned cattle, huge of frame, ancient of clays, graze 
beneath the palms. Did ever you hear of the flowery 
pastures of Corrientes? Nor I, until this after- 
noon we discovered them, miles of land pink, other 
miles yellow, other miles green, then miles of the 
three colors deliciously blended, and grazing on 
them thousands of cattle and sheep. The painter 
who would dare paint it would be reviled and 
scorned. Now we enter grass so tall that it almost 
hides the cattle, but this coarse grass is not nourish- 
ing; the beasts are thin. Doubtless the land would 
support good grasses, however; it calls for the 
plow, but that may not come soon on these immense 
ranges, owned by native people, who are well con- 
tent. It is, after all, a good land. As I close this 
we approach the northern limit of sheep-farming. I 
started with them in Tierra del Fuego and have 
traced them steadily north here, where bananas 
grow wild and there is both heat and rain, but no 
sheep, although natives do keep half-wild, long 



250 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

wooled sheep. Now I will turn southward again to 
take up the study in Santa Fe." 

On the train going up through Corrientes we saw 
many interesting sights. The trains, by the way, 
were equipped with cars that had double roofs to 
dissipate the terrific heat of the summer's sun. 
Corrientes presents a puzzle to the stranger; it is 
untilled. I quote from my journal: 

"Just now we are passing through a curious 
forest of miniature trees, with also an Indian vil- 
lage, but there are no farms or gardens in sight. 
Now and then we pass ostriches. I amuse myself 
by watching for the clay-domed homes of the oven 
birds, perched on the telegraph poles. Here are 
other miles of grass land pink and yellow with flow- 
ers and grazed by great collections of cattle and 
sheep. I learn that if a man will place in a pasture 
1,000 sheep and simply let them alone, they will all 
die within a year or two, presumably from internal 
parasites. They need shifting about from pasture 
to pasture. We are now in the latitude of Florida. 
Here are little pools of water under the trees, be- 
side the pools are myriads of crocus-like blossoms 
and back a little way woodmen are cutting the lit- 
tle trees, each one of which will make a fence post 
and one in a thousand will make a railway tie — but 
that tie will not rot for a thousand years. The 
scene changes ; we cross lagoons of dark and danger- 
ous looking water ; we enter a region of palms. Then 
we come to soil. In the south of Corrientes it seems 
to be rock near the surface or else hardpan and no 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 251 

agriculture at all, but we begin to see little fields of 
corn and wonderful, marvelous orange trees laden 
with fruit. There were of course little palm- 
thatched huts and others covered with tiles and 
some with palm trunks, split, and laid on like tiles. 
Then it got dark, but not before we passed great 
pastures of tall wild grass and in it ancient huge 
cattle, very old, and then fields, thousands of acres, 
of haycocks as thick as they could stand — nice, 
green living haycocks. What they really were I 
give up; I suspected they were anthills. I fell to 
watching for oven birds' nests on the tops of tele- 
phone poles, about one to every ten poles, and then it 
grew dark and we went in to dinner in the dining- 
car. 

"A great crowd of carriages surrounded us at 
Corrientes; we drove slowly to the correo or post- 
office. I found in a list on the wall that there was 
a letter here for 'Ving, Joseph,' so took courage. 
A grave and venerable man discussed the matter 
with us at some length; then he went to a safe and 
took from it a package of letters, three dear ones 
from home. Oh, I was glad ! We came then to our 
hotel and I fell into a chair in the dining-room and 
began devouring letters, by the good light there. 
The latest one was forty-five days old. I was up 
at daybreak the next morning and sallied out to 
explore. This is the farthest north that I can get, 
but I wish I could go on — the farther north one 
goes, the more interesting it is. The houses are 
much like those in other parts, but there are more 



252 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

patios and rare and lovely tropical things. Even 
the great church has a semi-circular garden at its 
front, a porch with huge columns leading at either 
side to the church, from the street, and enclosing 
the garden, which is half a circle. In the garden 
there are wonderful poinsettias, hibiscus and other 
blooms. 

EXPLORING CORRIENTES. 

'•'I explored the suburbs, where I could see the 
majestic river with steamships on it and steam- 
boats, the far shore a long way off. Then by lit- 
tle footpaths I walked through a combination of 
pasture, garden and jungle, noting the great bam- 
boos and the curious growths of one sort and 
another. The little brown women whom I met 
were taking care to wish me 'buenos dia.' And I 
found another lilytree. It is not the same species; 
it is lemon-yellow and the tree trunk has cunning 
little knobs studded on it, sharp as needles, but 
cone-shaped and two inches long. That gives the 
otherwise smooth, round trunk a singular appear- 
ance. This tree was in a small garden, and in the 
garden there was a tiny white house of mud with 
a thatched roof. I entered; a woman was making 
a fire of sticks in a shed, evidently a kitchen; I 
asked if I might have a flower and she assented. 
I crossed a suspension bridge over a gully and 
stood admiring the tree for some time. At last 
I picked one flower and left her a coin, she did not 
know the name of the tree, though if I understood 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 253 

her aright it bears fruit, but as she also used the 
word algodon, which means cotton, I am at a loss 
to understand. The seiiora at this hotel does not 
know the flower and had never seen it, I guess. In 
her patio are orchids, curious new fruits, roses and 
oranges." 

I sat a long time in the breakfast room of the 
hotel. Withered beggar women came to the door 
with staffs and baskets ; the senora sent them out 
ancient loaves of bread, and they went away grate- 
ful. When . one gets near the equator one finds 
much poverty and beggary; it is because people 
live so easily that -they see no need of labor. And 
then they no doubt multiply rapidly under these 
conditions. A lad shined my shoes ; I had no money 
less than a $100 bill ; we had a friendly discus- 
sion in sign language with some words about 
what was best to be done. I tried to tell him to 
return at breakfast time and showed him the ame- 
thyst crystals I had found which much interested 
him; he was in no hurry, but at last I borrowed 
10 cents of the waiter. 

MAKING MOSAIC TILES. 

I stopped one morning in a factory where men 
make the beautiful mosaic tiles that are univer- 
sally used for floors in Corrientes. They are very 
easily and simply made. There is a mould, say 
eight inches square, and in it a pattern of tin, like 
a fancy cooky cutter. This mould is of the shape 
of the pattern of the tile. The workman simply 



254 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

pours from little pitchers different colored cements 
in each compartment of the mould, filling them 
to a depth of a quarter of an inch. Pure cement 
is sifted over this, after the mould has been lifted 
out, then comes a backing of cement and sand and 
then the whole is pressed hard by a great screw 
press and the tile taken out to harden. This is 
finally done under water. The work is done rap- 
idly and the result is often beautiful. It is an in- 
dustry well worth introduction into the United 
States. 

Corrientes is more ancient than most of our old- 
est cities in the United States, but it has mos- 
quitoes ; also its cab horses are underfed and 
over-whipped. The brutality of the Argentine car- 
riage driver is most repulsive to a North Amer- 
ican. Here I became so indignant that I stopped 
our driver and got out of his carriage, but I could 
not speak Spanish well enough to make him under- 
stand why. It was at Corrientes that an amusing 
thing happened to me. Nearly all the plant 
growths were new to me, and I plagued the doctor 
by asking him questions that he could not answer 
until at last he disappeared, returning finally with 
smiling countenance. "Senor, I have found for 
you a man who lives here and who speaks Eng- 
lish and who can answer your questions." I was 
happy. We went to meet the man who proved to 
be young and agreeable. Introductions followed 
and I learned that he had been to an agricultural 
college in the United States. He had also had 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 255 

Argentine schooling. "I am so happy," I cried. 
"Now yon can tell me the things that I desire to 
know." "Please ask me," was his calm and con- 
fident rejoinder. "Very well, what is the name of 
that tree across the street?" "That I am sorry 
to say I can not tell yon." "Well, please tell me 
what is the name of that wonderful flowering shrub 
hanging over the wall." "Nor can I tell you that, 
either, for I do not know." "Will you, please, tell 
me the name of the strange tree that bears fruits 
as large as melons and that grows in the patio of 
our hotel?" "No, senor; I regret, but I do not 
seem to know any. of the things that you wish me 
to know." "Pardon me," I said, blushing; "I 
did not understand. I thought that the doctor 
said that you lived here." "Well, that is true; I 
do live here." "No, but I mean," I .cried with a 
deeper blush, as I saw how I was verging hard on 
the edge of discourtesy; "I understood that you 
had always lived here." "Yes, senor, that is right. 
I always have lived here," replied the unhappy 
young man. 

I present him as a striking object lesson of how 
not to educate a boy, for he apparently knows not 
the name of one tree or shrub or flower in his own 
marvelously decorated city. 

Near Corrientes I saw a sight rather charac- 
teristic of tropical lands everywhere — a house of 
bamboo, covered with thatch. Beside the house 
were great orange trees and banana plants. Under a 
thatched porch were seated a fat brown man and 



256 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

a woman. Many half-naked children played near 
by. Out near the railway grew a clump of grass 
ten feet high, and there two slender children, a 
girl and a boy, worked at cutting grass in straight 
handfuls, using the family butcher knife. The 
grass was no doubt for the mending of the roof, 
for it had been very rainy. The sight amused. I 
could imagine the fond father looking out from his 
soft seat in the shade of the porch roof and say- 
ing, "See those poor, dear children. How hard 
they work. How I hope these others will soon 
grow up to be a help to them." 

RECROSSING THE GREAT RIVER. 

It was a warm day; mosquitoes were bad — the 
first to much afflict us. We were near the line of 
Paraguay and Brazil. A Uruguayan battleship 
lay at anchor, a reminder of the marvelous river 
that we had been following. We took boat again 
and crossed to the west side, to the town of Resis- 
tencia. The river was miles wide with Strong cur- 
rent. It was a curious thought that this river 
came all of it from tropical mountains and forests 
— the greater part of it from an uninhabited land 
of forest and jungle. It is because it comes from 
the regions of tropical rains that it is so great a 
river; our own Mississippi comes from dry plains 
and semi-arid mountains; hence it is normally a far 
smaller stream. 

The land at Resistencia had a new look; indeed 
I think it not so many years since the Indians 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 257 

were here dispossessed. There are forested areas 
and open, with grassy glades between. The soil is 
as rich as black mud and much resembles our 
heavier black soils in Louisiana and the delta re- 
gion of Mississippi. 

Eesistencia is a neatly built and ambitious little 
city. We met there Sehor Juan S. Attwell, an 
Englishman of Argentine birth. He took us to his 
cotton farms, which he manages with the aid of 
Italian tenantry. The cotton was great, as high 
as my shoulder, fairly well laden with open bolls, 
and continuing to bloom. I think that frost does 
not visit that region. It had been poorly cultivat- 
ed by ox-power and the stand was poor; yet the 
land would grow cotton well — that was evident. 
Alfalfa was growing well, also castor beans, which 
make trees, and there were oranges on trees which 
were larger than I had ever seen before; they 
were obviously old trees. There was no scale on 
the oranges ; the trees have no attention after be- 
ing planted. Some of the alfalfa did not look so 
well as it might; I advised that the land be plowed 
deeper, as it was a hard, black clay and subject 
to drouth. The intelligent Italian farmer agreed. 
The practical difficulty in growing cotton there is 
to get the labor to pick it. It seemed fine, how- 
ever, if one wished to grow cotton, to be able to 
grow it in a land that would grow alfalfa, corn, 
oranges and I know not what else. In North Am- 
erica usually cotton is grown on poor soils; those 
at Eesistencia were so fat and black. It is not a 



.258 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

paradise there, however, for one year in four lo- 
custs destroy most of the crops. 

The fields of cotton were usually about two to 
five acres, cared for by Italian colonists who had 
also alfalfa, maize, oranges and tapioca (cassava). 
They were indifferently cultivated and often some- 
what weedy. The cotton stood usually about 
three to five feet high. The plants were full of 
fruit. A part of it had been gathered; I should 
judge that I saw fields that would make 500 pounds 
(a bale), of lint to the acre, and perhaps I saw 
some that would make more. The defects in cul- 
tivation were a poor stand, and indifferent cul- 
tivation, which is usually given by aid of oxen. 

Senor Attwell said that there was much land in 
the northern chaco adapted to cotton; that the cli- 
mate though hot, was healthful, without malarial 
fevers ; that land could be bought for $15 per acre, 
more or less, according to location and quality. 
Labor was very cheap and of fair quality. It would 
seem that there was an opportunity for a con- 
siderable development of cotton-growing. Senor 
Attwell was desirous of getting North American 
cotton-growers to come to this country. The trans- 
portation out is by water to Buenos Aires, via the 
Rio Parana. 

THE CHACO. 

We rocle all clay on a slow train through the 
chaco, the interminable forest of northern Argen- 
tina. It is a land of forest with open spaces not 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 259 

timbered but covered with large coarse grass. The 
timber is scrubby but valuable, as much of it is the 
quebracho wood from which is made quebracho 
tanning extract. The soils vary much. In gen- 
eral it is a perfectly level ground deficient in drain- 
age, having more rainfall than regions farther 
south. The soil is heavy, much of it black, resem- 
bling considerably the buckshot soils of Louisiana. 
Such fields as I saw in cultivation had, however, 
a looser, richer soil than the Louisiana buckshot 
type. In fact, it may be said to be in its best areas 
a rich soil. It grows good alfalfa, fair maize (the 
climate may be too hot for maize), castor beans, 
cassava, glorious orange trees (the older ones al- 
most like forest trees), rather stunted sugar cane 
(lacking moisture, I judge) and cotton. 

A more level land I have never seen. We did 
not in the day's ride pass one farm or garden. The 
land is so level that a heavy rain puts most of it 
under water. No drainage canals have been cut. 
The one enterprise, a vast one, is taking out que- 
bracho wood. All of the region has probably 
enough rainfall and heat and a good enough soil 
for cotton culture. It will not come in the level 
interior until a system of drainage is inaugurated. 
The present cotton lands are mostly tributary to 
Resistencia, lying west and northwest of that point. 
There is also much land in northern Corrientes 
adapted to cotton, but now given wholly to cattle. 
The territory of Formosa has a poor soil. It is 
covered with forests as well. The cost of clear- 



260 



IN FOREIGN FIELDS 



ing up lands near Resistencia ready for the plow 
would not exceed $12 per acre. There is also much 
land now ready for the plow. 

I should guess that there is in Argentina as 
much cotton land as is in Alabama. It awaits 
immigration, clearing, ditching and cultivation. 
Continued high prices of cotton would no doubt 
do something toward stimulating this industry, 
but European immigrants are quite unused to cot- 
ton culture and do not take kindly to it. There 
is an import duty of 5 cents per pound on raw 
cotton imported into Argentina. There are mills 
using cotton in Buenos Aires. 

TIMBER CUTTING IN THE CHACO. 

Coming down through the chaco we enjoyed 
seeing the lumbering operations. It is all done 
with splendid big, raw-boned oxen. Quebracho 
trees are slow-growing, misshapen, crooked things, 
as a rule, but they work them up with some care, 
as their wood is valuable. A young Englishman, 
manager of a big timber company, told us the fol- 
lowing anecdote : A North American company 
bought a tract of timber, with the mills and motive 
power, including the peons, to work it. There- 
upon they sent down a new American manager. 
The new man was shocked to see the condition of 
things about the plant; of his peons not one was 
married; they all worked by task work, each one 
by himself; they brought in the logs by means of 
the slow plodding oxen. The American resolved 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 261 

on sweeping reforms. First of all he commanded 
that all his peons should, get married, and brought 
in a priest to marry them in a wholesale way; then 
he hired them to work by the day at better wages 
than had ever before been paid in the chaco; he 
would encourage them to work hard. Then he 
bought mules to do his logging. 

Guess the result. It rained; the chaco became 
a miry expanse; there was no road save through 
mud and water; the mules could not and would 
not go; the men working no longer at task work 
but b}^ the day, slipped out of sight in the jungle 
and went to sleep, and no one could find them. The 
married came to him, one by one, complaining thus : 
"Senor, this woman lived with me many years, 
and I had no trouble with her until after I was 
married to her; since then I can not trust her out 
of my sight ; she is always- running away from me. 
I wish you to unmarry me so that my woman will 
be true as she was before." 

The American manager in his wrath renounced 
all that he had known in the states, reinstated the 
oxen and the task work, but he could not undo the 
mischief that he had done by imposing marital ties ! 

My most vivid memory of the chaco is of the 
clumps of giant pampas grasses, growing some- 
times sixteen feet high, and of a horseman riding 
between the clumps. The white plumes and the 
yellow stems and blades made a strikingly pictur- 
esque effect and I wondered why we did not grow 
more of this grass in North America. 



262 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

What is to be the future of the chaco? Very 
rapid indeed is the destruction of timber 
along' the railway, and it is very slowly replen- 
ished. If timber operators with whom I talked are 
not mistaken the woods of the chaco will not 
endure more than twenty or thirty years. Will 
the land go to cultivation? Assuredly much of it 
will, but there will be need of great dredged chan- 
nels to carry away water, for it is a flat region. 
It should grow cotton and corn and alfalfa on 
parts of it. There are now immense open glades 
covered with pampas grasses, so high that ele- 
phants would be hidden in them ; these can be made 
to grow good grasses, and then cattle. It is, how- 
ever, a tick-infested region at present. 

INDIANS AND ENGLISH IN THE CHACO. 

Few regions are less attractive than the chaco. 
Insects, mud, the vista forever shut in by ranks 
of gnarled and twisted trees, a hot sun and little 
chance of breeze — this is the chaco as I saw it. The 
young English manager of the great lumber com- 
pany told me this story. The Indians of the chaco 
have never been conquered, but they have been near- 
ly exterminated. He says that a great blunder was 
committed, for should agriculture be attempted 
there would be no source of labor. However, he 
admitted that in his own territory they still shot 
the few remaining Indians as fast as they saw 
them, because otherwise they would be in danger 
of their poisoned arrows, and that he thought 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 263 

tlieni nearly untamable. Probably under such 
treatment they are wild, to say the least. 

I like this frank young Englishman, typical of 
a host of them that one finds scattered over the 
world. They are well born, well feci, well muscled 
clean-living fellows. They bring with them that 
love for outdoor life and hard exercise that char- 
acterizes the English. He loves horses and rides 
well, after the English fashion; he loves to admin- 
ister and order about other people; that also char- 
acterizes the English; but he is kind and just and 
a good administrator as a rule. Also he is usually 
liked by his employes and subjects, sometimes 
devotedly loved by them, as I have frequently seen 
in South America and elsewhere. It is quite de- 
sired by Spanish landowners to employ capable 
English or American managers and superinten- 
dents; their habits of work and order, their liking 
to get up early in the morning and get out to see 
things stir — these things endear them to the land- 
owning class of employers. 

From Resistencia southward we indulged in the 
luxury of a sleeping car. It was less comfortable 
during the day, however, than our common Ameri- 
can day cars, although at night we enjoyed it. As 
there were no sheep in the chaco we continued 
southward. We stayed a day or two in Rosario and 
then went on to Buenos Aires. The distance is 
something like from Washington to Palm Beach. 
In Rosario I was busy interviewing landowners as 
to the cost of growing wheat and corn. Certainly 



264 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

such studies are at the best most imperfect be- 
cause yields vary tremendously, depending on the 
seasons, yet we learned some interesting facts. 
One of the men interviewed was Henry B. Coffin, 
an American landowner who has lived for forty 
years along the River Plate, as the Englishmen call 
Rio de la Plata. Mr. Coffin is a landowner and 
colonizes his land in part. Wheat is grown almost 
exclusively by colonists, who are not landowners 
but tenant farmers, commonly Italians or Span- 
iards, rarely Frenchmen. I quote Mr. Coffin : 

"The best colonists are Italians; they make the 
most successful farmers. They are often from 
northern Italy. Next to them are the Spanish and 
French. Men of Anglo-Saxon blood are always a 
failure in agriculture in Argentina. The reason 
is that they must live too well; they cannot prac- 
tice the economies that the Italians practice. For 
example, the Italian will rig three riding plows, 
with horses or oxen. One he will drive himself. 
One his young son or daughter will drive. One his 
wife may drive. If the children are too small to 
lift the plows and turn them around he will attend 
to that at each end, waiting till they have come 
out." He is also economical as to food. Most 
native Argentines are large consumers of meat. 
The Italian is a small consumer of meat, and meat 
steadily advances in price. In every way he is fru- 
gal. He is an indifferent farmer when he comes 
to Argentina, but he learns the use of improved 
American machinery and advances. He is more or 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 265 

less stupid, yet he will imitate the methods of any 
man who makes a success. 

ITALIAN COLONISTS. 

When the Italian gets money ahead he puts it 
in a bank and gets a small interest on it, say 
3 per cent. He wears better clothes, his children 
are educated in good Argentine schools, he rides 
in a better vehicle, and is in most ways measur- 
ing up to a higher standard of living. Very often 
he plans to return to Italy to live, But the return 
is changed into a mere visit; he cannot endure the 
life of Italy after years of life in Argentina. He 
finds that he has outgrown his old surroundings 
and that the middle-class people of Italy into 
whose class he has really advanced refuse to give 
him recognition. There he must reassume the sta- 
tion of a mere peasant, and this he cannot do, so 
he returns to Argentina. 

■ The Italian farmer or colonist sometimes saves 
enough money to buy land of his own, although 
not as a rule in the colony where he has lived, for 
the landowners holding the estates on which are 
situated the colonies seldom divide them or sell in 
detailed parts. As a rule, it takes him quite a long 
time to save enough to become a landowner. He 
builds his own house and on going away takes 
with him such parts as he can use again. Usually 
the walls are of adobe ; sometimes it is built of 
bamboo poles, laid close together, and plastered 
with earth. A house need not have the warmth 



266 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

that is necessary in North America, since snow 
is unknown. 

The share that the colonist gives to the land- 
owner may be 20, 30, or even 35 per cent, emend- 
ing on the location of the land, its nearness to the 
railway, and the market. Then the colonist often 
hires a man to help him with the spring plowing 
and seeding (for maize), or the fall work for wheat, 
and gives him a share in the crop as his expected 
reward for his labor. This is a matter that varies 
according to* location. It is not easy to learn what 
actual wages the colonists pay. They try so far as 
practicable to hire recent immigrants, for very 
low wages — lower than would be the rule of the 
country. 

MAIZE AND FARM WAGES. 

Mr. Coffin's land is largely rented for maize cul- 
ture. The land is plowed (if it is virgin camp it 
is cross-plowed), harrowed and planted with 
American corn drills in rows from 30 to 40 inches 
apart. Formerly it was planted much closer, but 
experience has shown the wider planting to be the 
best. It is harrowed once after it comes up, and 
cultivated once. It has not been found that fre- 
quent cultivation has increased the yield in time 
of extreme drouth, though in times of normal rain 
it has helped. The yield is from nothing to 40 
bushels of shelled corn to the acre. Yields of 80 
bushels are not unknown. The deadly drouths come 
in cycles of aboxit seventeen years, with lesser 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 267 

drouths between. Locusts come more often; they 
were this year highly destructive, but it is about 
time, Mr. Coffin thinks, for them to disappear. Mr. 
Coffin himself sometimes hires labor and puts in a 
crop. The following scale of wages is paid: 

Plowman, $22 per month, with food, $35.20 
(gold) per month. 

A less skilled plowman for less, $30 per month. 
The men work only during winter and spring at 
these wages. After this they work at harvesting 
for from $2.20 to $2.75 (gold) a day, board includ- 
ed. The horses that the colonists use cost them 
$35 to $45 each. ' They buy unbroken horses for 
from $22 to $30 each. American machinery costs 
about the same as in the United States, or a lit- 
tle more. 

The colonist prefers to buy alfalfa rather than 
grow it. He can often cut it on shares, giving 
one-half or perhaps two-fifths or three-fifths to 
the landlord, according to the demand for hay. At 
present alfalfa hay is dear, because of the drouth; 
it is worth $12 per ton. 

The plain facts seem to be that Argentina is a 
country of poverty, despite the inherent riches of 
the soil, which are very great. This poverty comes 
from the vicissitudes of the weather. Nowhere in 
North America would farmers live in the mud huts 
in which most colonists live. Nowhere would they 
be content to be surrounded by so few comforts 
and no luxuries. Drouths and locusts make vege- 
table gardens difficult or impossible in certain 



268 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

years. Fruit trees are not seen on the grain- 
farms, as a rule. The Italian colonist, with great 
industry, working long hours, with all his family 
assisting, aided by the rich, easily tilled soil, and 
a climate that makes practically outdoor living pos- 
sible, grows the grain, but an American farmer 
would rebel at these conditions. 

COST OF GROWING WHEAT. 

We also secured from Senor Julian Parr of Parr 
and Manfredi, Rosario, an estimate of the cost of 
growing wheat. I copy it here, using terms famil- 
iar in America : 

Plowing per square, four acres $ 1.98 

Harrowing 66 

Sowing and rolling 1.10 

Seed 3.52 

Cutting and stacking 3.52 

Total $10.78 

Average yield, 36 2-3 bushels cost .$10.78 

Threshing 3.96 

Bag, cartage and railway freights 5.10 

Total $19.84 

Thus in this estimate it costs to produce 36 2-3 
bushels nearly 53 cents per bushel, which is labor 
cost alone. The tenant farmer gets say 65 to 75 per 
cent of the crop, depending on his location. If he 
receives 70 per cent his share is 25.66 bushels, which 
cost him $19.84, costing him. to produce it a little 
more than 76 cents per bushel. To figure that 
the man owned the land would necessitate a valua- 
tion of it, say $25 per acre, though that would be 
a low valuation for good wheat land in Argentina. 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 



269 




270 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

A square (four acres) of land would then cost 
$100, and interest and taxes would be about $9 per 
year. This makes about 78 cents per bushel for 
production, thus : 

Labor cost of 36 2-3 bushels $19.84 

Add taxes and interest 9.00 

Total cost $28.84 

Cost of one bushel, approximately 78 

If there is a crop failure it falls entirely upon 
the tenant; that is, he must bear the cost of the 
labor and seed (he is saved the threshing expense) 
and in addition he must sometimes pay a cash 
rental for the use of the land that year equal to 
what the value of the crop would have been had 
he made a crop. And so he might have paid at 
least $8 per square, cash rental. This seems incred- 
ible, but I am assured of its accuracy. Thus he 
would lose during that year of crop failure in 
plowing and seeding $7.26, and in addition the rent, 
say $8, or in all, $15.26. This loss divided up be- 
tween the good years, say one year in seven years, 
would mean a little more than $2 yearly additional 
cost and would bring up the cost of production to 
about 85 cents per bushel. 

The bare cost of seeding and harvest is charg- 
ed at the lowest rates. Between seeding and har- 
vest the farmer has no employment. We have 
made no charge for superintending or for the val- 
ue of his time while he is watching his crops grow. 
It is not often possible for him to find other em- 
ployment. 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 271 

Senor Parr's figures are low as to cost of plow- 
ing and seeding. With hired labor, as Mr. Coffin 
has shown, a plowman receives at least $1 per day. 
Even with the large plows in use he will take iy 2 
days to plow a square, with four animals, worth 
say, $160, and a plow costing $50 or more. The 
use of the animals is worth at least $1 per day, and 
of the plow 25 cents. Thus it costs $2.25 at the 
lowest per day for the plow-team; iy 2 days then 
would make $3.37 per square and not $1.98 that 
Senor Parr estimates, and harrowing, seeding and 
rolling would cost in like proportion. 

It is impossible' to escape the conviction that the 
Argentine colonist is working for less than his work 
should be worth in the market ; that his recompense 
is less than anyone would accept in the United 
States, and that he accepts it here because it is 
an improvement on his condition in Italy. Let us 
make an estimate giving conservative values to 
this operation : 

Plowing per square (four acres) $ 3.37 

Harrowing' 1-25 

Sowing and rolling 2.00 

Seed . 3.52 

Cutting and stacking 3.52 

Threshing 3.96 

Bags, cartage and freights 5.10 

Rental of land and taxes 8.00 

Total for 36 2-3 bushels $30.72 

Add one-seventh of the loss of the year of crop 

failure 2.00 

Total cost of 36y 2 bushels of wheat $32.72 

Cost of one bushel of wheat equals nearly 90 cents. 



272 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

This is near a true estimate. It is not perhaps 
so much a question of what does it cost the Ar- 
gentine to grow wheat as "what will he willingly 
grow it for?" The latter question is not difficult 
to answer. It must be borne in mind that the col- 
onist is almost always an Italian or a Spaniard 
(there are also colonies of Russians) ; that he is 
used to poverty; that he has really a chance here, 
even under hard conditions, to better himself in 
the world. He will continue to come and will take 
what the fates send him in the way of harvests. 
How much lower in price wheat might go before 
he would give up and the land go back to grass 
and cattle, I cannot guess. There is a rumor that 
at present colonists are nearly starving in the West, 
in Pampa Central and western Buenos Aires ; that 
they are so desperate that they are stealing sheep 
for food. 

The life of the Argentine farmer is one of vari- 
ety. It began to rain in tremendous downpours 
early in May. (I refer of course throughout this 
book to the year 1911.) Thus wheat seeding went 
on fairly well, excepting that the poor work ani- 
mals, weak because of drouth and scant feed, prov- 
ed a handicap. The rich, black earth shot up the 
wheat plants with amazing luxuriance. When I 
left Argentina the fields were beautiful. One of 
my estanciero friends wrote me later about the 
outcome in his part of the province . of Bnenos 
*ires. There must have been a crop of 30 bushels 
to the acre on the ground, but yet it rained. The 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 273 

soil of liis province is all an alluvial deposit, not 
meant for rain. Plowed fields will not support the 
weight of animals nor machines, the binders sank 
down in the mud and the crop could not be 
harvested. Finally, with great labor and difficulty, 
a part of it was got in to the shock and thresh- 
ing time approached; the engines used in thresh- 
ing the wheat disappeared in the mud. Some- 
times it would take days to rescue a traction en- 
gine from its grave in that rich, black, fat soil. 
When at last the colonists got their wheat to mar- 
ket they had less than 10 bushels to the acre in 
this particular region — which is not 30 bushels, as 
they had hoped to have. They do not have the 
fields fenced, so they can not turn hogs in to con- 
sume the refuse, as we would do in North Ameri- 
ca. The maize crop under these conditions, how- 
ever, was glorious, so the colonists were not quite 
ruined, although greatly disheartened. 

BUENOS AIRES IN MAY. 

I quote from my journal: "May 3: The people 
at the hotel (the Chacabuco Mansions in Buenos 
Aires) seem glad to see me again, and it seems quite 
like home, only there is no fire here. A hotel with 
fire in Buenos Aires costs some incredible sum, $8 
per day in gold, so I will worry along. I wear my 
fur-lined coat always in my room, and when I 
write. What a rain we had this morning. All the 
streets were put aflood and part of the city is un- 
der water. Many houses fell 'down because al- 



274 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

though built of burned bricks, they are laid up with 
mud mortar. The Spanish have an expressive word 
for a house falling down, 'derrumbiamento. ' One 
can hear the walls falling as one rolls out the 
syllables of that word. As to rainfall, it seems to 
be a case of either drouth or floods in this land. 
In Santa Fe, however, the drouth remains unbrok- 
en. It is now dark at 5 o'clock and not light be- 
fore 7 — which is strange for the month of May. I 
met today Sehor Emilio Lahitte, chief of the bureau 
of agricultural statistics, and a strikingly intelli- 
gent man of high ideals. There are many of that 
type here. It is fine that the goodness of the world 
is not all compressed into one country or region. 
I am writing to Secretary Wilson suggesting that 
I bring home some young ostriches ; they would be 
fine to acclimatize in our pastures, say from Ken- 
tucky southward. They are easier grown than 
turkeys and are larger and good for human food 
when they are young. 

"There is a fine market in Buenos Aires where 
fruits are brought from Mendoza. I saw beautiful 
apples, but twelve of them cost $2.50, so I readily 
left them. I learn some curious things about foods. 
There is here a market where one can buy Swift's 
or Armour's bacon and chipped beef. The in- 
itiated do not buy Argentine pork products because 
they are apt to make one ill, as I experienced. The 
reason may be that swine here consume the decom- 
posed carcasses in the fields. It does not look as 
though there would soon be an Argentine pork in- 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 275 

dustry, partly because of the prejudice that is 
sure to exist against Argentine bacon, although 
there will no doubt some day be good stuff made 
here. 

"I learn steadily points on etiquette. One must 
not touch an orange or an apple with one 's fingers ; 
one must peel them with a knife and eat them 
with a fork. I offend because I take oranges and 
apples in my fingers. One may, however, pick 
one's teeth and smoke cigarettes at a table. A 
man does not take off his hat when he meets a 
lady in a hall or an elevator, but he takes it off 
when he enters a bank. It is all a bit puzzling. 

"At the hotel in Eosario one day I ordered ba- 
con and eggs. 'I do not think that they will have 
bacon,' said the doctor, but they had. When the 
eggs came, no bacon was visible; exploration re- 
vealed tiny bits as large as postage stamps, repos- 
ing beneath the eggs. 

"Once a .day, usually in the evening after the 
lights are lit, I walk to the American Consulate on 
Calle Suipache to mail what I have written for my 
government and ask for letters from home. I en- 
joy these walks along the crowded streets, elbow- 
ing my way through the groups of idlers at the cor- 
ners, stopping now and then to look in shop win- 
dows. The booksellers' windows are interesting, 
especially those selling French and German books, 
and there are many fascinating maps ; they quite 
make me wish to set off to new and strange re- 
gions to explore. We have the poorest maps in the 



276 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

world in North America; it quite humiliates me to 
remember it. 

THE BOTANICAL GARDEN. 

"I think that I shall surely have to go to the 
Royal Hotel, where they have steam heat. I have 
had dinner and am sitting in my fur coat, writing. 
It has been a happy day; I have felt well, got rid 
of a lot of work, and things came out well. I went 
out to the botanical garden, which is a pretty and 
interesting spot. There is a great mingling there 
of countries — Africa, Asia, Europe, Australia and 
North America, and then each province of Argen- 
tina has a spot by itself. I was happy under the 
trees of North America; they are not very big, nor 
are they all here, yet there are oaks, walnuts, pines 
and sycamores. They had mostly lost their leaves. 
Many flowers are still blooming in the garden. I 
was in search of my wonderful lily tree. I did not 
find the one bearing the red lilies but I found its 
kinsman — a tree with a yellow bloom. It is the 
palo borracho. It seems to be the Chorizia (or 
Chorisia) insignis. It is not blooming here; it 
may do so in the spring, or it may be too cold for 
it to bloom. I mean to go back early in the morn- 
ing and meet a man who speaks English and learn 
what is the name of the red one, so that I can help 
to get it introduced into Florida and California. 

' ' Saturday morning, 10 :30 : I went early to the 
Jardin Botanico, walking a great deal of the way 
to take off the chill after bathing. The sun shone, 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 277 

and it was cheery. I was disappointed, after all, 
in finding the man who was to speak English for 
me, but the gardener was sent to accompany me. 
He had a catalogue, splendidly illustrated. "We got 
along well together; he showed me the American 
trees and the palo borracho (Chorisia insignis) ; 
we found one lemon yellow lily on that tree ; it 
evidently is too cold here for it to bloom well or 
else it blooms in the spring or summer. The il- 
lustration shows a fine bouquet of the blooms. He 
did not have the red species. The kinds here are : 
Family of Bombaceae Chorisia crispiflora, insig- 
nis and speciosa. ' I saw a catalpa ; maybe it was 
one of the 'wrong' kind. It had a bad attack of 
blight. The honey locusts, of the North Ameri- 
can trees, seem best; there is the common locust 
too. We saw the cypress (Taxodium distichum) 
growing magnificently, beyond all expectation in 
America, five years planted and as high as a house. 
I told my informant of its nature in North America, 
and he was so pleased and interested that he took 
me to see the Big Tree of California, a young one, 
but thrifty and pretty, and told me how he would 
take away the nearby trees to give it room. I 
showed him that either the white pine is much 
changed by its environment or else it is wrongly 
labeled. 

"While looking at the American trees, and va- 
rious beautiful things, I happened to remember my 
boy David — how he would if he were here go about 
smiling and enjoying. I could see him plainly, and 



278 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

I said 'God bless the dear boy.' A finely uni- 
formed guard near by looked about, bowed and 
took off his cap, wishing me 'buen dia, seiior.' In 
reply I wished him 'muy Undo dia, senor' — 'very 
beautiful day, sir.' 

' ' Dreams are strange things. I dream intermin- 
ably of North America and of home, but never of 
my wife and children; it is always things, people 
and events of the long ago. Repeatedly I visit with 
my father, who died twenty years ago. I think 
sometimes one sees things clearer and better in a 
dream than in waking hours. I feel that one knows 
best one's real self when one sees it perform in a 
dream. Last night in my dream I was a boy, about 
to launch a little boat on Darby Creek, which was 
in flood. In this boat I planned to float to the Ohio 
River and so on down to Louisville in Kentucky. 
My father came to me (I saw him, oh so distinctly) 
and asked gently if he could not go along with me. 
I awoke then and it was revealed to me with some- 
thing of a shock that I had not always taken the 
father with me in my thoughts or hopes or plans, 
and that he had felt being left out just as in the 
dream. Poor old father, with a big, loving heart 
and a difficult temper that spoiled his life, how much 
his boy is like him ! 

"In the early morning I see some care-worn 
poor women ; there must be many, of course, in 
a city of 1,200,000 people. I wrote out my speech 
to deliver some time at the Universitv and Dr. Paz 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 279 

is to translate it, and as I deliver it lie will translate 
as I go along. I visited the 'Zoo' again. There 
was a monkey, with clothes on, loose up in a big 
tree, and folk were trying to coax him down. I 
saw a pretty sight at the 'zoo' — a wee, wee brave 
little laddie running at the hyenas' cage and shout- 
ing at them; the cowardly brutes looked as though 
they were eager to get at him, but he waved his 
baby hands and pretended to try to frighten them. 
An old grandfather near by smiled indulgently. I 
attended church services. It was a fine old build- 
ing, with columns like a temple. There was a good 
audience of fine clean-looking people, chiefly men. 
How I enjoyed the singing, the mixed choir, and the 
reading and prayers and all. I could almost im- 
agine myself in the dear old chapel at home. In 
the lovely park that lies in front of the city, to- 
wards the water, I wandered, seeing the flowers, the 
magnificent palms and the green grass so bounti- 
fully refreshed by the great rains. A little Italian 
girl came along with a big basketful of greens ; at 
least the tops are of spinach. She had a pure and 
pretty face, and I watched her going out of her way 
to pass close to the flowers. She leaned far over 
from the weight of her big basket against her slen- 
der form." 

TO BAHIA BLANCA. 

On that Sunday night we took a train for Bahia 
Blanca, a seaport in the southern part of the prov- 
ince of Buenos Aires and nearly as far from Buenos 



280 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

Aires as Chicago is from Omaha. Nearly every inch 
of the way is through a fertile, level land. There 
are, however, some uplifts of rock, and the old peaks 
of mountains that once emerged from the sea when 
all this region was below the sea and the river Par- 
ana was pouring down its muddy flood and rede- 
positing it to make the fertile plains of Argentina. 
Now these rocky hillocks and mountain tops emerge 
from the level plain like islands from the sea. 
There are several lines of railway running to Bahia 
Blanca, which is planned, and probably destined, 
to become a great port. Our train was comfort- 
able. I quote from my journal. 

"May 8: "We arrived here this morning at 9:30. 
We passed low mountains; the scenery reminds me 
of Colorado. We were met by a pleasant German, 
and he has spent the day trying to make us happy. 
It is an interesting new city, of great hopes. It 
is not on the water, curiously enough, but about 
three miles back ; but they have built immense docks 
and elevators for grain from which they can load 
a big steamer in seven hours, and they are yet 
working at enlarging the docks. It is a great wheat- 
growing country. No passenger ships come hert 
as yet, There is a park with gay flowers and yel- 
low Scotch broom blossoms. They lost four crops 
of wheat in succession in the country tributary to 
the port; then the steamships ceased to call. They 
prefer to take all the wool to Buenos Aires, where 
the freight is higher. Well, such plucky men as 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 281 

are here will succeed, no doubt. There is a won- 
derful grape-growing region near by. The hotel 
at Bahia Blanca is the finest that I have ever lived 
in. It has great marble stairs and columned halls; 
the rooms' while simple are large and the beds fine ; 
we rested well. From my train on the west line 
of railway the desert came into view soon after 
leaving Bahia Blanca; It was the same old des- 
ert of scrub brush that we left in Chubut. For 
an hour or two we came through a region of sand- 
hills; in a litle valley were alfalfa fields and homes 
and the beginnings of vineyards and orchards; 
then came a wide region of wheatfields, new-plowed 
and ready for sowing, then the desert and brush. 
Now we have just crossed the Bio Colorado. 

"There is quite a village here, but I see no signs 
of irrigation or agriculture. The whole land 
seems given to sheep as in Chubut. "We have 
just had luncheon. I was not hungry but the 
soup was good; I ate some chicken, salad and 
oranges. The dining-cars, as they have no ice 
or refrigerators, carry chickens alive, dress them 
slightly, removing all the larger feathers, and 
cut them in chunks with a dull hatchet, then cook 
them slightly. Sometimes we see lads with arm- 
fuls of chickens at the dining-car door selling them. 
It is a full dining car. Diagonally across in front 
of us is a fine-looking young cavalry officer in red 
trousers, top boots and blue coat with a high red 
collar, the stripes of a captain. Opposite him is 



282 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

a man of Jewish cast, only more bulky and mas- 
culine than the real Jewish type ; he is one of the 
loud, aggressive kind with a very thick neck and 
wrinkles on it. 'Do you know, doctor, what I would 
do with such men if I were Czar of the universe ? ' 
'Why, no; what would you do?' 'I would drown 
them, one and all; for I hate them. They are men 
who succeed, who scruple at nothing that brings 
success, who domineer others, who scorn others' 
opinions or delicacies or desires, who successfully 
bully their way through life and get more than the 
rest of us.' The doctor said nothing; what he 
thought I can not tell. There was a heated argu- 
ment between this man and the young officer; the 
other and older men had little to say, but had quiet- 
ly to express themselves now and then. After- 
ward I learned that the discussion was about some 
man who Lad been exiled or banished by a former 
president and who had now been asked to move 
back home by the present president. It is a wise 
man in Argentina who takes the attitude of the 
older men ; they shrug their shoulders and make 
non-committal replies, unless they are sure of their 
companions. The young officer will live and learn, 
no doubt. The hook-nosed man is, I imagine, of the 
type that has often started revolutions. 

AT CHOELE-CHOELE. 

"May 10: Here we are in the desert. We got 
in last night in time for dinner, after dark, and 
found the landlord on the outlook for us. The kind 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING . 283 

Spanish gentleman who had given us a letter of 
introduction to the manager of his estancia had 
telegraphed ahead that we were coming. The ho- 
tel is kept by French folk; two pretty French girls 
came to our room, set our table for us and brought 
in our dinner. I ate with my fur coat on. We 
went early to bed, for it was not pleasant trying 
to read in the cold room. There is a teru-teru 
bird in the patio ; it resembles a monstrous kill- 
dee. The sun streams in. We are waiting for a 
coach. Here they call the lightest two-wheeled 
sulky a 'coach.' Well, it is just as well; it costs 
no more. We drive, I think, twenty-seven miles; 
the roads are good. There are here the largest 
wagons that I have ever seen; the hind wheels are 
seven or eight feet high; the front wheels turn un- 
der the body of the wagon. They hitch a drove of 
little horses or mules in front and load them with 
nearly a carload of alfalfa. There seems to be 
some agriculture along the river. We see the first 
sign of frost; in the patio the castor bean is killed; 
there had been no frost yet at Bahia Blanca. 

"Early in the morning we were out to see 
what the land looked like. To one side stretched 
the desert, thinly covered with scrubby brush; 
to the other side a plain and on it alfalfa 
ricks. 'Good! We have reached the land of irri- 
gation,' I cried. 'How dreadfully alike are all the 
small villages of Argentina, save that in the north 
one sees tropical vegetation peeping over the walls 



284 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

that enclose the yards ; here there is nothing. There 
is the ' almacen ' that sells everything from macaroni 
to cheese and harness; there is the 'ferreteria,' 
where ironware is sold and maybe blacksmi thing is 
done; there is the ' peluquria ' where the barber is 
supposed to shave a man at his convenience; there 
are the 'tienda and roperia, ' where one buys cloth; 
and then there is a place where implements are sold, 
a large yard, usually, with sheds about it. Also 
there are 'fondas,' or places for workingmen to 
eat and drink, and hotels for the upper classes. 

"In Choele-Choele the traffic seemed to be in al- 
falfa hay. From the fields came a wagon such as 
none ever saw outside of Argentina. It will carry 
seven tons of grain or as much baled alfalfa as 
could be piled onto it. There is a real advantage 
in this great wagon in a land where as yet never 
shovel has stirred either to make or to mend roads ; 
the giant wheels will go over brush or gullies with 
unconcern, and the wagon once possessed is, I 
should fancy, the owner's forever, as no one could 
either break it or steal it. It is a good wagon 
moreover where one must send his wagoners many 
leagues with freight, or after it, as the most stupid 
or careless of drivers could hardly break anything 
about it. I imagine the employment of such men 
as one ordinarily sees driving horses in this land 
must be a sore trial to men reared in lands where 
horses are loved, understood and cared for. The 
whip is too often cheaper than oats. 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 285 

"Our man left nothing to be desired when he 
brought our two horses, each drawing a two-wheeled 
cart with top. He led the way, driving one cart ; in 
the other Dr. Garrahan, my guide, and I followed. 
Rain had fallen and the roads were heavy. Out- 
side municipalities in Argentina I have yet to pass 
over one mile of road that had been made by the 
thought or care of man. There seems here a lack 
of road laws. Bridges are built sometimes, but 
there are no roads ; what they term roads are places 
between fences where the traveler picks his way as 
best he may. 

ALONG THE RIO NEGRO. 

"Across the muddy plain we went toward the 
Rio Negro. The sun shone warm, though there was 
haze in the air. Our good, fat and gentle horse, 
full of alfalfa, jogged along, following its mate. 
"We forded an arm of the river and entered a re- 
gion with belts of timber, the beautiful native Pata- 
gonian willow, with also the giant bunch grass that 
we call pampas grass. The trees were in their 
autumn tints of gold. It was a sight that I had not 
expected to see in Argentina, being just as one 
might see in many a northern state in late October ; 
here it is their November, and the leaves are not 
merely yellow, but they are falling as well. 

"We crossed a great stream on a ferry boat 
and were on the Isla of Choele-Choele. The island 
is twentv miles or more in length and several miles 



286 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

wide. It has a rich sandy soil, with some spots 
of hard clay. It is being put under irrigation; we 
saw the beginnings of farms. Unfortunately the 
units here are 250 acres, and the men are poor; 
thus their land comes slowly under cultivation. In 
Argentina they have come to invest and own homes. 
It is a cosmopolitan lot — Italians mostly, I should 
say — and then Spanish and native Argentines, Bas- 
ques and Russians. 

"We stopped for breakfast at noon, at a store 
of galvanized iron set down where there is to be, 
some day, a village. Around us were the newly- 
plowed fields and the small adobe houses of the 
new colonists. It would be a dreary prospect to 
one who had not seen what irrigation will do and 
who had not faith. At the store a peone set a table 
under a great shed, and presently we were filled 
with boiled beef, mutton, potatoes, squash and, to 
finish off with, soup. The scheme is to eat the 
meats first, then to finish boiling the pot a little 
while, when, presto, your soup is ready — a scheme 
that I commend to burdened housewives. 

A CRUDE FERRY. 

"We harnessed again and set out on our way. 
Some miles of journeying up the island we reached 
a ferry. The ferryman was away; the boat was 
small indeed. The seiiora, a vigorous Italian wo- 
man, flew about getting ready, sending a lad for a 
peone who was somewhere in the fields. She made 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 287 

the boat ready; then she dashed madly up the hill 
to see that the bread that she was baking in a 
great mud oven out doors did not burn. A large 
brood of ruddy children watched her and us. While 
the peone was coming I went to see her home; it 
was a very small picturesque mud hut under a 
tree ; there were grape vines of European sorts 
in the dooryard, the big oven, a pile of squashes 
half as big as the house, some very good maize, 
and the senora. One must never forget her. How 
I admired her, in her flexible-soled cloth-topped 
shoes, unfettered with two much clothes, walking 
with the strong, calm, free stride of the athlete, her 
face smiling, especially when she drew from the 
oven a loaf of really delicious bread, and giving us 
a taste divided the rest among her expectant chil- 
dren. Great are these Italian colonists. From 
their strong loins will come the new Argentina. The 
present lords of the soil, who so often toil not, 
neither spin, little realize that some day Argentina 
will be for the sons and daughters of women like 
this senora. It is the law of the universe that to 
those who labor, and bear children, the things of the 
earth will finally belong. 

"We crossed the river after four efforts, and 
were on a lovely bank with willows great and small, 
set as though in a park, and tufts of the giant 
grass eight feet high. A short distance away was 
the margin of the desert, through which we were 
soon to pass. It was almost identical with the 



288 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

desert that I had seen in Chubut, some hundred 
miles south, and between here and Chubut lay not 
one settlement excepting along the coast. It is an 
unbroken expanse of plain, covered thinly with des- 
ert shrubs, under which is some short sweet grass. 
Along the river the land is all owned in great tracts 
of from 12,000 to 100,000 acres. Back a little way 
it is fiscal, unpeopled and unstocked, except for a 
few wandering shepherds and flocks." 

A DESERT ESTANCIA. 

The desert was wet. Little birds flitted through 
the shrubs; three zorros or little foxes quarreled 
impudently near us for the possession of a bit of 
carrion. We noted that where the sheep had de- 
stroyed the brush the wind had swept away the 
soil, carrying it to drift about the fences or corrals. 
Presently a windmill from North America hove 
in sight and then the galvanized roofs of some small 
houses; it was the sheep station of Seiior Antonio 
Balma. 

What is a station like in the Argentine bush? 
This one was especially favored, for it lay against 
the rich valley lands of the Eio Negro, and so had 
its alfalfa field and its outlook toward trees. Apart 
from this, it was like many another station. It 
consisted of a galpon or shearing shed of galvanized 
iron, corrals and a dipping vat near by. The cor- 
ral fences were made with thick-woven willow 
branches to stop the drifting sand, which neverthe- 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 



289 




A I.AIMREKS' ('AMI'. 




COW-HERD AT WATER-TROUGH, SOUTH AMERICA. 



290 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

less buried them in places and half filled the cor- 
rals. Beside the windmill, stood a round tank of 
great size, made of galvanized iron. It was used 
for irrigating a garden as well as for watering the 
stock. There were three small houses of mud, 
whitewashed and thatched with pampas grass and 
covered then with galvanized iron. Some huts, 
windowless and with earthen floors, completed the 
inventory. The seiior was, I take it, a Basque; he 
resembled a prosperous working farmer of Nebras- 
ka. His senora was a plain but comely woman, 
moving about silently on errands of kindness, her 
feet shod in the cloth shoes of the country. 

Dinner followed, with meats in various courses 
and home-made bread. I should say that the food 
of the camp man in Argentina was fully three-quar- 
ters meat, and if he desires a change, he cooks the 
meat in a different manner. "We had delicious 
broiled mutton ribs and later saw the fire over which 
they were broiled, for the house possessed no 
stove and no fireplace. Instead, it had a mere plat- 
form on which the fire was built, and over it, high 
up, a wooden hood leading to a small opening in the 
roof, inviting the smoke upward. I sat in the room 
for some time the next morning and enjoyed the 
fire while mate and coffee were being prepared, 
but I could not see that any of the smoke went 
out of the hole in the roof. Perhaps it would 
have done so had we closed the outside door, but 
none of us thought of that. 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 291 

I enjoyed thoroughly the six or eight children 
of the household; they were fine, sturdy little ones, 
well behaved and helpful to one another. The 
house possessed no chairs, but it had enough stools, 
home-made, and benches, and by the fireside sat a 
row of children, baby and all, enjoying the warmth 
while their mothers gravely boiled the coffee and 
made the water hot for the mate (Paraguayan 
tea). That was at breakfast time; like true Argen- 
tines, we ate nothing, but drank much at this meal. 

Afterward, with many adios and saluagos and 
hand shakings, we bade goodbye to the honest folk 
who had given us their beds, while I fear they had 
slept on the floor, and went on our way to visit an- 
other and greater estancia. The day was overcast; 
rain fell gently. Down the river we rode, mostly 
through the high camp and brush. We followed 
a great new irrigating canal for some miles and 
passed a camp where government engineers were 
living and surveying a greater canal that may carry 
much water from the river south to the desert. At 
last we came in sight of fine green fields of alfalfa 
and great ricks of alfalfa hay, Lombardy poplars, 
a white and really handsome house, with an ave- 
nue leading to it from the desert, between fields of 
alfalfa. We were at the estancia of Dr. Victor M. 
Molina. The estancia contains about 70,000 acres 
of land, mostly desert of course, but all good sheep 
land, so there is not much danger of overstocking. 

The estancia carried only 8,000 sheep. The back 



292 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

country awaits the windmill, the fence, stocking 
and, maybe, higher prices for wool and mutton. 
The sheep are dipped and shorn ; the ewes are Eam- 
bouillets and the rams Lincolns. The location is 
about as near the equator as Dayton, 0. 

Let us imagine ourselves in a great, rambling, 
white-walled estancia house, enclosing two sides of 
a court. A high, white wall encloses the other sides. 
Within the court are grape vines with trunks as 
thick as stove pipes, figs in bearing, eucalypts, 
peaches and a fine apple tree. In the lot there are 
all sorts of American plows, mowers and harrows, 
a road-making machine and a gasoline traction en- 
gine. Toward the river we see an orchard of 
peaches and grapes ; near the water on the bank 
there is a lovely flower garden with many chrysan- 
themums in bloom and some rare trees, among them 
a deodar. Through the native willows, avenues 
and walks have been cut by some one who loved 
trees ; below flows the noble Rio Negro. I marvel 
at all this adornment and imagine it to be in part, 
at least, the work of the ferryman. As I wandered 
there, I gathered twigs of the Patagonian willow to 
bring to plant in my own land. 

While we had breakfast, the mayodomo told of 
his having been up nearly all the night trying to 
find two would-be murderers who had assaulted one 
of the engineers ; so the scene was not so peace- 
ful as it appeared, although I had stood within six 
feet of a little bird that swelled out its soft brown 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 293 

breast and sang to me, much as the mocking bird 
sings, only with less power. Then in the rain, which 
poured by now, we started off again, and the ferry- 
man said with astonishment that the river had 
risen two feet since he had crossed last and it was 
still rising. 

TRACES OF WELSH COLONISTS. 

Things were exciting along the Rio Negro. 
Again we crossed the island. Jnst before we 
reached the coast, we came to a farm belonging to 
our guide, he of the horses, and a house perched 
on an artificial hill, like an Indian mound. "Whose 
work is that?" I asked. "The Galenses," was 
the reply. "Galense" is the term used by the Ar- 
gentines to denote the Welsh. We stopped, and go- 
ing inside, it was our delight to see a fine fire in a 
real fireplace that did not smoke. That, also, was 
the work of the Welshmen, who, it seems, had made 
the irrigating canals and afterward sold them and 
gone away to Chubut. "Why," I asked our Italian 
guide, "did the Welshmen leave this fine land and 
their good beginning here?" "Because civilization 
was getting too close for them," was the reply, 
meaning that too many Latins came too near. This 
amused me much as being an instance of the lack 
of appreciation that races have for one another, 
the Welshmen believing their ideals and civiliza- 
tion far superior to that of the Argentines. I could 
forgive the Argentines if only they would learn 



294 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

of the Welshmen, or of some one, to build chimneys 
and to have firesides while there. 

After a cup of tea, we pushed on, somewhat anx- 
iously, for yet the rain poured, and when we 
reached the ferry the boat was some distance from 
the shore. With some peril we made the passage, 
and rejoiced. It was dark as we set out for Choele- 
Choel, distant three leagues, over a road which was 
a mere track winding through the brush. Soon the 
ominous roar of little Niagaras pouring down from 
the hills behind told us to have a care; we indeed 
came near putting wheel into a chasm washed six 
feet deep in the sandy earth. The guide wavered 
and turned, declaring it unsafe to proceed in the 
dark, and so we made for old Choele-Choel, a ruin- 
ous village on the river bank a mile away, left in- 
land by the railway. Soon lights appeared, then 
wide streets running great rivers, then the inn. 
We put away the horses, then the heathen raged 
and I at least imagined vain things, for we were 
wet through and chilled and at the inn there was 
not so much as a chimney where a stove could be 
put and no place to dry wet garments. We had 
driven through at least fifty miles of brush and 
trees that would all have made good fuel. We had 
dinner and then stole into the little kitchen where 
the fat and jolly cocinero made ready the dinners 
of his patrons ; there we warmed up a very little 
and slipped away to bed — the one safe refuge in 
Argentina in winter time. 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 295 

In the night I awoke to hear a distant and 
mournful "hallo." "It is some poor devil about 
to drown," I reflected, as I heard the rain drip and 
the rivers ripple in the street and turned luxurious- 
ly over in my warm bed to sleep. You see I did not 
know the word for "drown" in Spanish, so I could 
be of little use. But the man had his revenge. He 
and a guilty conscience kept me awake most of the 
night. Was ever there a man so slow in drown- 
ing? In the morning I learned to my disgust that 
he was a mere guard in a penitentiary near by; 
that his bellowings were merely to remind the in- 
mates of their sins, and the consequences thereof. 

The rain put water over all the valley of the 
Rio Negro. "We saw the cattle coming out to the 
highlands that skirt the valley. I take it that this 
valley has a fine, rich, enduring soil, full of lime 
and other mineral salts; that with irrigation it will 
grow fine alfalfa and also figs, peaches, apples, pears 
and many other fruits, but that because of floods 
one would occasionally have a wet dooryard. I 
look, however, soon to see a dense population on 
the Rio Negro, where soil and climate are both 
much as we are used to in Colorado. There are 
sandy valleys where by a sort of natural sub-irri- 
gation alfalfa grows well and immense crops of 
seed are harvested. Dr. Garrahan and I could not 
but notice the fine, vigorous types of people. It 
should some day be the Scotland of Argentina. 

We slipped back to Bahia Blanca again and to 



296 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

our fine hotel. Eagerly I approached the steam 
radiators, but they were yet filled with icy vapors. 
Coal coming from England is dear in Argentina 
and we perhaps were the only guests who especially 
cared for fire. The hotel was losing money every 
week. What they lacked in steam heat they quite 
made up in kindness and courtesy to us. 

CONSTRUCTION WORK IN CEMENT. 

At Bahia Blanca I learned how they make pal- 
aces of marble. First of all they are roughly-built 
structures of cheap brick. Then come the Italians 
who coat them with cement plaster, making wonder- 
ful effects of great stone blocks, columns and cor- 
nices, all the beautiful architectural details that one 
could desire, and in general the effects are sim- 
ple and good. It would be a pleasure to be an archi- 
tect down there, for one's dreams could be carried 
out with ease and at small cost. The cement plas- 
ter is made of a mixture of two cements, one a 
white one, with sand and, I think, a proportion of 
lime. It appears to be singularly free from de- 
fects. I saw glorious columns that were indis- 
tinguishable from the finest stone. 

In Bahia Blanca we found Dr. E. Graham, a 
veterinarian, a son of an English estanciero and a 
man who has traveled over most of Argentina. As 
an earnest of what Argentina can do, and I hope 
will do, I must tell something of Dr. Graham. He 
thinks in Spanish,; it is the language that he uses 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 297 

most, but he speaks good English. He is thorough- 
ly educated, practical and a student, with the same 
ideals that good men have everywhere. "Come 
and see my hospital," said the doctor. It was 
equipped much as a veterinary hospital would be 
anywhere. As we were inspecting, a native team- 
ster or coachman brought in a horse and stated 
plaintively his case, whereat the doctor replied with 
a laugh, "He tells me to cure the horse, so that he 
can use it at once!" he explained. Horses are not 
always well cared for in Argentina; there was a 
time when they were so common that if one got 
lame, sore or tired it was no matter; another was 
at hand to replace it. Few vehicles are provided 
with singletrees or doubletrees; the horses pull di- 
rectly against dead, unyielding bulk, and bad shoul- 
ders are common. 

"Come with me, here; we have an industry that 
may be new to you;" and he led to a shed where 
stood a row of meek asses, distinctly unlike North 
American asses, having dark stripes down their 
backs and shoulders, their bodies a soft mouse col- 
or. "Asses' milk is used for feeding babies; it is 
the best of milk for that use," he explained. In a 
pen were the little ass colts, with shaggy hair, great 
ears and soft, appealing eyes. "They get bran and 
water only, but they thrive well enough ; we can 
not afford to give them milk," he explained. He 
obtains the asses, wild, from the region west. Cows 
and their calves are driven along the streets, the 



298 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

calves' noses thrust in leather pokes. The cows 
are milked in front of any house where milk is 
wanted. This is not a bad scheme, if one wishes 
to be sure that the milk is not watered. All of 
the cows so used that I saw were a sort of old-fash- 
ioned Short-horn. 

ESTANCIA SAN RAMON. 

, Dr. Graham's father is manager at Lopez Le- 
cube of the estancia San Ramon, only a few hours 
from Bahia Blanca, so we three went out one af- 
ternoon. The way lay through interesting fields of 
green pastures, covered with alfileria or bur clover, 
with here and there the giant grasses characteris- 
tic at one time of the pampas. The soil was a soft, 
dark-brown loam, evidently rich in organic matter. 
Under it at depths of from a foot to several feet lay 
the white "tosca" rock, which I suspect is largely 
of calcium. There were immense pastures along 
the way, their green fields sloping up to ragged, 
barren-looking mountains in the distance. There 
were great farms too, and farming villages where 
men lived who grew wheat and possibly some oats 
for pasture or early feed for horses in spring. 
This farming is done commonly by tenant farmers 
who put in 200, 300 or 400 acres to a man, and when 
it rains well they make good profit. 

After the deluges of rain the men have abound- 
ing hope and confidence, and are afield in numbers, 
driving often six horses to an American two-fur- 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 299 

row plow, sometimes with four or more plows in 
one field. They do not plow too deep nor too well, 
but rush the work to get as much ready as possi- 
ble. How productive the soil looked. How inter- 
esting to remember its inexorable evolution. First, 
the country was the wild, unfenced pampas, covered 
with coarse grass. Then in the late 70 's, or early 
80 's, came civilized man, the driving out of the 
Indians, and the partitioning out of the land very 
often in immense stretches. After that came the 
heavy stocking, often with horses, supposed to be 
useful in destroying the wild, coarse grasses, then 
the fencing and stocking with cattle, the stocking 
with sheep, the heavy overstocking that resulted 
in the disappearance of the old wild native grasses 
and the "fining" of the camp. It was noted that 
this had been hurtful, lessening the carrying capa- 
city of the pastures, especially during dry years, 
since the plants left were annuals of various 
sorts, so there was a sensible reduction in the num- 
bers of sheep and mixed stocking with cattle, horses 
and sheep. With the introduction of agriculture 
and the advance in price of lands and the coming 
in of the farmer, there came the division and sub- 
division of estates, and year by year the diminish- 
ing numbers of sheep. 

After the plow what? California has shown that 
wheat following wheat brings soil depletion after 
a time. It is plain then that wheat cannot always 
be grown in this fertile country. But alfalfa grows 



300 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

well and it restores soils. Some day there will be 
millions of acres of alfalfa and farmers themselves 
will feed it to animals. At present the withdrawal 
of land from pasture and turning it to agriculture 
means the total disappearance of that land as a 
producer of animals. The farmers buy their meat, 
or more rarely, steal it. 

"I hope father will meet us at the station," re- 
marked Dr. Graham. "Oh, we can walk out; you 
say the station is on the place," I remarked, jaunt- 
ily. The doctor smiled, but the father met us with 
an American automobile. We bundled in, and were 
soon speeding away across pastures. To the left 
and right of us great Lincoln ewes were grazing. 
The sheep were of huge size and with distended 
sides looked fat. "Would you believe that these 
sheep were dying of starvation thirty days ago?" 
asked Dr. Graham. No one could have believed it; 
they were growing fat. Such is the richness of the 
soil and the feed that springs from it when rain 
comes. 

"How do you like these fences, Mr. Wing?" 
"I replied that they were the best that I had ever 
seen, which was true. They were made of large 
wire, well galvanized, none of it rusty; the posts 
were of an imperishable Argentine wood; there 
was not a staple in it, for each wire ran through a 
hole in the middle of the post — which is the cus- 
tom in Argentina, and every wire was as taut as a 
string. 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 301 

We clashed across the plain at thirty-five miles 
an hour and at last, after passing seven miles 
through the pasture lands of San Ramon, came to 
a little vale that appeared to be an ancient wood 
of pines, eucalyptus and other trees. Dr. Graham 
manages 115,000 acres; he has 25,600 sheep, 1,200 
horses and 6,000 cattle. The sheep were originally 
of Rambouillet blood, but for many years Lincoln 
rams had been used. Now nearly all of the sheep 
are of Lincoln type. A few showed Rambouillet 
blood. "Are not thesei cross-bred sheep giving 
you the best wool?" "Oh, no doubt of that," was 
the reply. 

"Then why do you not use Rambouillet blood 
more?" "Why, I have worked so long to get my 
sheep to a uniformity that I hate to lose it by in- 
fusing Merino blood. Would you do it in the United 
States?" 

"Assuredly we would; we do not feel that we can 
do without a percentage of Merino blood in any 
business flock," I replied. 

Learning that I admired the Rambouillet, Dr. 
Graham brought up for my inspection a flock of 
ewes of that breed. They were marvelous ewes, 
denser-wooled and more inclined to wrinkles than 
those we breed in the United States. I begged him 
to take 500, 1,000 or 10,000 ewes and breed them to 
Rambouillet rams, as an experiment, putting their 
ewe lambs aside and when old enough breeding 
them again to Lincoln rams. He would thus obtain 



302 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

that excellent cross-bred wool that we need in 
North America. 

A FLOCK OF LINCOLN SHEEP. 

"I suppose you have many finer lots than these 
in North America, Mr. Wing," remarked Dr. Gra- 
ham, as we stood looking at 4,000 Lincoln ewes with 
their heads up, eyes bright, backs broad and legs like 
pillars under them. 

11 Neither in North America, nor anywhere else 
in the world will you find such a sight as this," I 
replied. For we could have taken 1,000 out of that 
lot fit to show at our fairs. It is truly a blessed 
region for sheep, when it rains (and does not rain 
too much). "I let my sheep out on shares to shep- 
herds, furnishing the land, fences, sheep and cot- 
tages in which the men live. In return the shep- 
herds take all care and do all dipping and shear, 
under my supervision, and they have each one-quar- 
ter of the wool and one-quarter of the increase 
above the original numbers in their flocks. In good 
years they make good profits ; in bad years they 
work for rather low compensation, but so do we," 
explained Dr. Graham. Then he told how the own- 
er, Lopez Lecube, bought the whole place in 1880 
for $7,200 (gold) and today it is worth for land 
alone $2,300,000. ''When I came here first, many 
years ago, it was a sheep run; there were no trees, 
only a barren-looking wind-swept plain. With my 
own hand I have planted these trees." There were 
pines that appeared to have been there half a cen- 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 303 

tury, and fine eucalyptus and even a few palms, so 
mild are the winters. 

"Come, we cannot spend all our time with 
sheep; we have cattle to see as well," and we went 
to inspect some Short-horn bulls. We found them 
in comfortable quarters, in fitting for the great 
Palermo show, and soon had them out for inspec- 
tion. "Is not this a grand one, Mr. Wing?" "Yes, 
but here is a much better one," and I laid my hand 
on one that would have caused spectators to sit 
up and look at our International. He was a low 
blocky bull, thick, wide and massive, with marvel- 
ous loin and rib. "Ah, yes, that is a good little 
bull, a real good little bull, but he has no style; he 
•will not get a second look from the judges at Pa- 
lermo." "You mean his neck is not long enough?" 
"That's it; he has not the carriage he ought to 
have; the judges do not get very close to their 
animals at Palermo." 

"But Dr. Graham, which is the business end of 
a bull or a bullock!" 

"Oh, yes, I know what your American packers 
like, but we have quite different ideals in our show- 
rings at present. However, I'll take them both 
along, but you will see that your favorite will get 
no attention whatever." 

"Your cattle are better now than ours in North 
America, Dr. Graham; if your judges persist in se- 
lecting as you indicate, ours will be better than 
yours some day," was my retort. 



304 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

We visited the alfalfa fields ; they, looked well af- 
ter the rain. We saw part of the horses and some 
exceedingly good ones. I wandered, looking at 
trees, shrubs and flowers, remembering that it was 
mid-May and at home on Woodland Farm the buds 
had opened on the oaks, warblers were in the 
branches and there was in the air a mingled sound 
of doves cooing and the drone of diligent bees. 

What did it cost to operate this place? Count- 
ing* interest on the land in use and devoted to sheep, 
with all other costs, the total was more than one 
with faint heart would like to contemplate, and, as 
in America, the feeling was that the land would 
pay better in agriculture. It is only a matter of 
time when the plow takes fair San Ramon, bit by 
bit. 

A DAY AT CURAMALAN. 

When morning broke at Curamalan in Southern 
Buenos Aires Province, I found myself in a great, 
roomy, comfortable bed-room, through the windows 
of which streamed the morning May sun. There 
was a great twittering of nesting birds, it seemed 
to me, such as we hear in Ohio in Maytime. I arose 
hastily and went to the window. My entrance to 
Curamalan had been after dark, so all that I had 
known was that we approached the place between 
rows of tall pines, that the house bulked large in 
the gloom, that as we entered we encountered a 
smiling hostess, and that she led us directly to a 
cheerful fire in the grate. Later a memorably good 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 305 

dinner was served in the long dining-room, and 
there also, oh wonder of wonders, a fire blazed on 
the hearth. The next morning A. F. Taylor awaited 
me in the dining-room. It is the custom for peo- 
ple to take their morning bite as they like, one at a 
time, at different hours; we were the early ones. 
Mr. Taylor was the manager, an Englishman from 
Uruguay, South American-born, as much like a 
jolly, shrewd sensible, courteous North American 
as one could find. When we had finished our eggs, 
toast and coffee, we sallied out, for he had sheep 
in the corral to show me. As we walked we talked. 
The place once carried 300,000 sheep; it now has 
about 45,000, but they are practically pure-bred 
Lincolns. The place contains 170,000 acres. On it 
there are 3,000 horses and 13,000 cattle. Mr. Tay- 
lor's remarks are here condensed from memory: 

"Away back in 1870 it was that the government 
wishing to open up and develop this wild country 
towards Bahia Blanca, from which the Indians 
had lately been driven, granted the land for $400 
gold per league (6,250 acres). There was another 
stipulation; the land was covered with the coarse, 
innutritions grasses; the owner was to stock the 
place with 50,000 horses, which were thought to 
destroy the coarse grasses and bring in finer ones. 
Horses were rather difficult to buy in sufficient num- 
bers, so that when the day of counting came there 
were really only about 35,000 horses on the place. 
However, the Irish manager thought he could make 



306 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

them do. The government counters were stationed 
at a point where the mares could be made to pass 
by them and were told to begin counting. They 
were city men; at any rate they soon complained 
that it was impossible to count as fast as they 
went by, and to move wild mares slowly was impos- 
sible. So it was decided to count how many passed 
in five minutes, then to count them after this by the 
hour, so many to pass in an hour. This was sat- 
isfactory to all interested; the mares were run 
through; after a few hours those that had run 
through first had made a detour behind the counters 
and were run through the second time, so that all 
was found satisfactory; a big dinner was given to 
all concerned and Curamalan was bravely launched 
on its career. 

TERRIBLE RELICS OF DROUTH. 

"There was not a tree nor a shrub within miles 
of here at that time. I suppose the camp fires 
(prairie fires you call them in North America), 
made the pampas treeless ; you see that trees grow 
well when they are planted. I suppose if we had 
regular rainfall this land would be worth as much 
as your best land in North America. But we have 
our troubles. This walk that you admire so much 
is more than one-quarter of a mile long. It is 
dressed with a layer of burned bones. "We use 
bones for heating our branding irons, and for oth- 
er purposes as fuel, for we have no wood, and coal 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 307 

coming from England is dear. This walk repre- 
sents the losses of one bad year of drouth. In one 
pasture where I had a lot of good cattle, practically 
pure-bred Short-horns, every animal died. It 
makes a good walk, as you say, but I do not know 
that the shareholders in Curamalan would enjoy 
walking over it. Yes, we can grow alfalfa; we do 
grow it somewhat. With hay in the stack such 
losses could be avoided; we have not reached that 
stage yet in these parts. We grow alfalfa only in 
a limited way, for the bulls and stallions. Here 
are the sheep; what say you to them?" 

The only thing that I could say was that they 
were magnificent pure-bred Lincolns, in splendid 
condition. The shepherd caught a few of them so 
that we could look at their wonderful wealth 
of fleece, and feel the thickness of their flesh 
and their great spring of rib. "Would it not 
be better, Mr. Taylor, if they had a little 
Rambouillet blood in them, to fine their fleeces?" 
I asked. "Yes, that would make the wool 
more valuable, but how would you do it without a 
sacrifice? One needs a sheep that is three-quarters 
Lincoln and only one-quarter Eambouillet, so you 
see it takes now two crossings to get that, unless 
one dared to use cross-bred rams, and we never do 
that in this country. Do you in America?" 

"Indeed we do, on the ranges ; we use them very 
much. What harm would there be in using on your 
best ewes some Bambouillet rams, saving the best 



308 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

of the ram lambs, of this cross, and breeding these 
to the pure-bred Lincolns? Your result would be 
sure to be the very thing you seek — the one-quarter 
Rambouillet and three-quarters Lincoln, with good 
mutton and the best wool in the world." 

' ' It may be ; but we are strong against using any 
but pure-bred sires in these parts. But come along; 
I will show you some of the cross-bred ewes." 

They were grand of body and glorious of fleece, 
and I marveled all the more that the suggested 
cross is so little attempted. Often the Lincoln ram 
is used on the Rambouillet ewe; it is seldom or 
never the reverse, so that in much of the best sheep 
country the Rambouillet is all but extinct, the Lin- 
coln reigning supreme. 

"That was a bad thing, that overstocking with 
sheep years ago ; it seriously hurt the grass. I sup- 
pose men were led to do it by the coming of a suc- 
cession of unusually favorable years. This land is 
all fit for agriculture, excepting the mountain, which 
is a small part, and is to be sold for colonization. 
I suppose it will bring about $30 per acre and be 
used for wheat-growing," said Mr. Taylor. 

"You ask what it costs to care for these 45,000 
sheep. We will step into the office a moment and 
get it all." In the office three bookkeepers were 
busily at work, and at Mr. Taylor's request the fig- 
ures were soon put together, showing us that every 
item of cost of sheep excepting the use of land made 
a sum of about $26,000. "With the land used for 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 309 

sheep and interest calculated it amounted to about 
$124,000. 

SOME HIGH-CLASS SHIRE HOESES. 

"No, Mr. Wing, sheep-farming in Argentina 
cannot compete with grain-farming. You see we 
have few perennial grasses ; in dry years the ground 
becomes as bare as your hand; the sheep keep alive 
by gleaning up the seed from the bur clovers; the 
cattle die, if one's land is heavily stocked; the old 
coarse grasses that kept cattle alive in bad years 
are mostly gone; the plow will take all this land 
unless prices materially advance for live stock. But 
come out and see the horses; we have a corral full 
of them." 

We found in the great corral a lot of high-class 
two-year-old Shire colts. How I wished for the 
genius and brush of Rosa Bonheur. There also 
were some exceedingly fine Suffolk colts. After as- 
sortment the finest of the Shires were placed by 
themselves, caught, haltered and led to great stables 
where each animal was given a large box-stall. 
"You see how tame they are, Mr. Wing? Taming 
is done when they are weaned ; each one is then hal- 
tered and put in a stall for a week. It is a lesson 
that they never forget. Now tell me what you think 
of them." 

I could only say that they were magnificent; 
that Argentina was assuredly a great country for 
breeding good horses. They have a great horse- 



310 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

man, Frank Grimshaw, caring for them. They use 
the best sires that they can find in England. "What 
about alfalfa pasture for horses, Mr. Grimshaw?" 
"Alone it makes too much bone; the colts are 
too tall and leggy. With grasses mixed in it is 
ideal. It is the only hay that we feed. In truth, 
there is no other hay in Argentina in amount enough 
to be worth considering. It is true that we have 
some advantages for horse breeding here. We put 
our mares in the big pastures and get 75 per cent 
of living foals from them. Is there a land where 
there is not trouble? Our mares are dying right 
now, and some of the two-year-old colts: we do not 
know what is the trouble. Do you have the bot 
worm in North America 1 ? We have given for it 
every manner of medicine and even poisonous sub- 
stances. We have then killed the horse treated and 
found all the bots alive and unhurt. We have had 
veterinarians here by the week and month. You 
will need to go beyond Argentina to find a land 
where the weary cease from trouble and the veter- 
inarians are at rest." 

Afterward talking with a veterinarian who had 
been called to Curamalan, I learned that a certain 
pasture and watercourse were infected with worm 
germs and this and the consequence of the drouth 
accounted for the sick and dying horses, 

We strolled through alfalfa knee-deep to see 
magnificent Short-horn bulls taking their ease. They 
say there is no loss from bloating in the fall, al- 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 311 

though there is some loss in the spring. We had 
tea in a handsome vineclad house, where dwelt 
Frank Grimshaw (a Lancashire man) and his dain- 
ty Scottish wife from Stirling. 

I left the region of Bahia Blanca with sincere re- 
gret, conscious that my trail would not likely ever 
again lead to this land of fine men. I quote : 

EASTWARD FROM BAHIA BLANCA. 

"In my fur-lined coat I sit in the train going 
over a good roadbed through a land to the eye as- 
tonishingly like Wyoming, bearing eastward to- 
wards Tres Arroyos. The plows are busy, for some 
rains have come and I see a new thing — fields of 
oats sown for the winter grazing by sheep. We pass 
a village where many of the inhabitants are of Dan- 
ish descent, and I confidently expect to see some- 
thing different from what is typical of Argentina. 
Here I am disappointed and astonished ; the only 
sign of the Dane is in some yellow-haired children 
on the street, and a few signs with Danish names 
on them, so surely is all else swallowed up in the 
Latin flood. 

"Tres Arroyos is a city of possible 6,000 peo- 
ple and the most abominable streets that I have 
ever seen. They are nearly impassable, although 
there are stepping stones for foot passengers at 
the crossings. Again fortune is kind to me. I 
have a room into which pours sunshine and as I 
write a group of villagers gathers outside my win- 



312 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

dow to watch my clicking typewriter. I have had 
a walk to the suburbs to see some really fine euca- 
lyptus trees and to my astonishment and disgust 
I find that tomato vines are not yet frosted. The 
weather is unlike our fall weather at home; there 
is a steady chill in the air, a dampness from the 
nearby sea. There is less difference between the 
temperatures of day and night than with us. 

"We met some estancieros who were farmer- 
like people, reminding me strangely of farmers I 
have met in Normandy or even very much of the 
type of men I have known who managed farms and 
enjoyed doing it in the United States. The Basque 
type is common here. Basques come from the 
mountains between France and Spain ; they are a 
race apart. No one knows whence they came, and 
their language has affinities for some of the lan- 
guages of the American Indians. They are natural 
shepherds and good ones — thrifty, hard-working 
and some of them resemble our ideals of old Eng- 
lish Squires. An old fellow was so interesting to 
me because I could understand bis Spanish better 
than that of any one I had encountered, so after 
we had left him I remarked to the doctor 'Well, 
that man must speak good Spanish ; I could under- 
stand nearly every word that he said.' 'On the 
contrary, Mr. Wing, he speaks about the worst 
Spanish I ever heard, and you understood him be- 
cause his Spanish is so much like yours. ' ' 

We visited one evening a great Italian cafe. It 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 313 

contained 150 small tables ; hundreds of people were 
drinking coffee, hot milk and other things. There 
was fine music and at intervals a moving picture 
show was given. I have seldom seen such excellent 
pictures ; there was no flickering to them ; all was as 
steady as in real life. They seemed often to end 
unhappily ; the doctor said that was intended so that 
people would feel a little sorrowful and order some- 
thing to drink to cheer them up. No one was drink- 
ing much; in fact, the people are exceedingly tem- 
perate in most of the country. Nice little children 
came in to watch the pictures. It was the chief 
place of interest in the town. It is curious that a 
bank building there is finer in appearance than any 
in central Ohio. It is of cement plaster on rough 
brick, but these people employ architects who are 
thoroughly educated. 

We met by appointment two estancieros in the 
cafe ; one was an Italian from near Naples ; the 
other a French Basque. Now they are both rich. 
The Italian was a fine stalwart man ; he must have 
come from a northern family, transplanted to south- 
ern Italy. He was intelligent, interesting, courteous 
and handsome. The Basque was not so big a man 
in any way, yet intelligent and courteous. They own 
many thousands of sheep, and the land on which 
the sheep live. I was interested in their telling me 
that men are beginning to sow oats for the sheep to 
eat as winter pasture, and that the mingling of agri- 
culture and sheep was making numbers increase; 



314 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

elsewhere in the province they have been decreas- 
ing gradually bnt appreciably. 

I visited a man ' who has an estancia ontside 
and lives in Tandil. It was the first time I had been 
in a town dwelling. Of course it was against the 
sidewalk, and one story; the hall led direct to the 
patio. In this case the patio was not closed at 
the back, but joined a small orchard. In the patio 
a lemon tree was full of fruit and bloom ; there also 
were small orange trees, a sweet cherry tree and 
roses. In the tiny orchard were pear, apple and 
cherry trees, mostly pears, and a huge cactus tree. 
It was odd to see these things down in that part 
of the world. The senora took us to her dining- 
room. The floor was of American pine, scrubbed 
very white ; the furniture was black walnut ; there 
was a rug under the table. There were two large 
colored chromos of fruit and some fancy calen- 
dars on the walls. I liked the walnut sideboard; 
on it were two white china hens that we saw in 
America thirty years ago and the use of which I 
never, understood. By the way, every railway car 
and nearly every room in South America has a 
duster made of native ostrich feathers. It is a use- 
ful article in a land that is filled with dust. 

A DAY AMONG THE BASQUES. 

It is often charged against Argentina that it is 
"a remarkably monotonous country, all alike and 
uninteresting to journey through," I did not find 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 315 

it so. I found no two regions, no two estancias, 
alike. I spent a day among the Basques and Danes 
at Tandil. Argentina as a rule is level; in truth 
the great part of the eastern regions are doubtless 
old sea bottoms, and the wonderful fertile soil is 
no doubt a deposit from ancient rivers. At Tandil, 
however, are hills or real mountains of granite, 
standing up out of the level plain. They must have 
been islands once and in effect they are islands 
now. On all sides the level plains stretch away, 
covered with grass, oats or maize. 

Tandil is a pleasant little city, with a good 
sprinkling of Danes among the population. The 
town is at least 100 years old. We had a day to 
wait at Tandil, so we climbed a granite mountain 
to see a balanced stone there. The stone, as large 
as a haystack, swayed by the wind, so that it will 
burst a bottle placed beneath it. Since our visit the 
stone has unhappily slid from its ancient seat and 
rolled down the mountain side. From this moun- 
taintop we could look away over a lovely plain, 
seeing homes, farms, dairies and roads. This was 
especially interesting to me ; much of Argentina 
suffers the curse of immense holdings of land, with 
an impoverished tenantry. Here was the beginnig 
of better things, the division of the land among 
users of it, with all the civilization that this plan 
should bring. 

Seiior Indalecio Mendiberry, a Basque sheep- 
farmer and estanciero of some note in Argentina, 



316 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

has produced many famous Lincoln rams. He lives 
in town, as might have happened in Illinois. His 
town establishmment is fairly typical. We entered 
his one-storied cement-coated house through a hal] 
that lead directly to the patio or inner court. The 
patio had in it an orange tree full of fruit, a lemon 
tree with both fruit and bloom, a cherry tree and 
palms, roses and flowers. The house enclosed two 
sides only of the patio, a high wall on one side and 
the other a fence separated from a little orchard 
of pears, apples and plums with an orange tree or 
two. The teru-teru bird stalked around and from 
time to time gave warning cries ; it is kept as a 
sentinel to warn against intruders. The senora, 
much like a comfortable, kindly, hospitable house- 
wife of Ohio, welcomed us to her sitting-room. A 
yard with a high wall adjoined the house and in 
this yard the carriage and horse were kept, when 
he had a horse in town; under a shed I noticed a 
pile of nicely sawn wood for the kitchen, there be- 
ing no other place in the house where fire could be 
built. How I raged against the lack of fire in Ar- 
gentina. The people, however, suffer little from the 
cold; they are used to it, and it teaches them some 
useful practices. For one thing they go early to 
bed and do not get up too early mornings. I have 
never seen a people enjoying better health than 
those fireless folk down there. 

Sehor Mendiberry is a big, bluff, vigorous man. 
In his carriage we sallied out. Near the citv were 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 317 

really fine farm houses, all in Spanish style, sur- 
rounded by trees and shrubs and flowers. Some 
of these were the homes of Danish colonists, who 
seem to have done very well. It was interesting to 
see the light-haired children and wonder how many 
generations it would be before they had intermar- 
ried with the black-haired Italians and Spanish 
folk. The road had not been touched by man and 
yet the land was settled 100 years ago. "We waded 
through ponds that put mud on our carriage step. 
What a shame, when all could so easily be made 
good. No doubt it will come some day; it awaits 
the coming of proper road laws, and their execu- 
tion by a people who have not as yet had a vision 
of what roads may be. 

A CHURCH AND SOME TEEES. 

A rather large and beautiful stone church 
claimed our attention. It was set in a grove of 
eucalyptus and other trees ; beside it stood a fine 
schoolhouse. These were a gift of Senor Ramon 
Santamarina, a man who owned great estates there 
and who must have had noble aspirations. From 
the church we rode many miles along the edge of a 
belt of eucalyptus trees that he had planted. The 
belt may have been 100 yards wide and the trees 
set about ten or twelve feet apart. Eucalyptus 
trees are often beautiful; these were. Although 
planted only twenty years, they were many of them 
near sixty feet high and growing rapidly. Within 



318 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

the lines of trees stretched a great pasture of some 
thousands of acres. On its farther sides were noble 
trees. On rising ground in the distance we could 
see his residence, and adjoining it a forest of pines, 
thrifty and grand. Grazing in the pasture were 
many good Short-horn cattle, in fairly good flesh. 
I have seen some great plantings of trees in my 
time, in Europe and America, but nowhere have 
I seen anything so noble, simple and beautiful as 
the concrete idea of enclosing say 10,000 acres with 
great evergreen eucalyptus trees. 

Sehor Mendiberry's trace of land includes 2,000 
acres. He told us something of his life ; how he 
had been a shepherd for Henry Thompson many 
years ago and had cared for his Lincolns ; how when 
he left his employ he had taken the sheep with him 
and bought his place, paying for it $24,600. I fan- 
cy he went into debt for his land. He has since 
paid for it and bought two other places. He has 
from 2,500 to 4,000 Lincoln sheep; many of them 
are exceedingly fine. He has bought rams from 
Henry Dudding and other well known English 
breeders. He breeds them nearly or quite as good 
as those from England. 

There was a very good house on the estancia; 
a man was the cook and bottle washer. There was 
no stove; the fuel is not well adapted, they say, 
to burning in an American stove. At first I thought 
that the fuel on the great square raised platform 
under the big wooden hood (supposed to catch and 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 319 

lead away the smoke), was peat; afterward I 
learned that it was sheep manure taken from the 
corrals. A few twigs also were added and after 
a time a right merry fire was blazing. "When it 
was being kindled the cocinero cut chunks of tal- 
low from a great mass that lay on the bench and 
this soon melted and made a good blaze. "Is that 
fat from a steer?" I asked. "No, senor, from a 
sheep; they are all like that here in summer- 
time." It was almost incredible; the fat was at 
least three inches thick. I enjoyed watching our 
breakfast cooking. We sat and watched it, laid 
on a twig at intervals and swallowed great volumes 
of smoke so that the chimney was quite equal to 
caring for the remainder. A kettle simmered on 
the back of the platform; in it bubbled broth that 
would make our soup. The bread in well-baked 
hard loaves the size of a big grapefruit, was 
brought from town and we dined regally on broiled 
mutton, soup, bread and tea, with wine for those 
who desired it. Then we went out again to in- 
spect the sheep. 

MUTTON A POPULAB FOOD. 

I soon learned that the mutton-eating habit 
among the Argentines is established. On this typical 
estancia they annually , kill about 180 big Lincoln 
sheep. These are consumed by five men, with the 
aid of occasional visitors and helpers at dipping 
and shearing time. I was told that they killed a 



320 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

sheep every other day; it may be that they really 
kill extra sheep for the days when extra men are 
present. This would make a sheep last a man about 
ten days; he would consume about forty sheep in 
a year. There are 6,000,000 people in Argentina. 
Not all of them eat mutton, of course, but they all 
eat meat, as much as possible. On most cattle 
ranches sheep are bought or bred especially to feed 
the men. I have been on estancias where they killed 
five and even ten sheep a day. What is the effect 
on the people of this large consumption of meat! 
I do not know. They are a healthier people than 
we, but there are other things entering into the 
problem; I can not solve it. I know that in North 
America if I were to eat the vast amount of meat 
that some of these people consume I should be laid 
out; in Argentina I subsisted to a large extent on 
mutton, with the net result that I felt ten years 
younger than I did before I arrived there. Senor 
Mendiberry ate mutton as though he loved Lincoln 
sheep. He had surrounded his little home place 
at the estancia with a grove of North American 
black locusts, which grew well. A tiny bird hopped 
in through the open window, glancing inquiringly 
at us, intent on catching belated flies. After break- 
fast they got up a bunch of wethers for us to see; 
among them were some with little spots of scab, 
to be cured by hand-dressing. The shepherd 
quickly found the infected places, often on the bel- 
lies or near the udders; the scab was torn off; 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 321 

a pint of dip was put on, using one of the coaltar 
preparations, and the sheep let go. The sefior un- 
derstands the nature of the scab germ; his policy 
was lame, however, in that he did not dip twice at 
short intervals. He dips at intervals of about four 
months. 

LINCOLN SHEEP PRICES. 

The ewes were great, a lot of them, with splen- 
did Lincoln wool. A capitaz, cook and three men 
care for the sheep, one man devoting all his time to 
the pure-bred sheep at the galpon. There is prac- 
tically no agriculture practiced, nothing is fed ex- 
cepting to the stud flock. He receives 17 cents for 
wool. His fat wethers bring him $3.96 each. He 
values the land at $52.80 per acre. He is making a 
little profit. His land may some day keep many 
more sheep than at present. He is no agricultur- 
ist. To plow part of his land and sow oats for 
winter grazing would greatly increase the carry- 
ing capacity of his place. To drain it, in spots, 
would help protect his sheep from stomach worms, 
which bother in wet years. The Basques make good 
shepherds and good citizens ; they are a little lax 
along scab lines, maybe, but they need teaching 
there. 

The streets of all towns in the great province of 
Buenos Aires run northwest or southwest, diagonal* 
ly with the points of the compass. All boundary lines 
in the province in the same direction. Argentina is 
a treeless land, and coal is brought from England 



322 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

and is dear. Who does not see the connection? 
Every house is turned toward the sun on every 
side in winter; the sun is the sole fireplace, grate, 
heating stove and furnace. It is interesting to see 
the people come out of their houses in the morn- 
ings to warm themselves in the sun. I observed that 
children walked to school carrying books on their 
little heads; it is a good practice, as it makes them 
finely erect. 

THE STORY OF SARMIENTO. 

Sarmiento Day is a holiday, somewhat like our 
Washington's Birthday, and is to be forever re- 
membered. Sarmiento was born in the west, in a 
little city, at a time when governments were weak 
and South America was in turmoil and trouble. 
Education was at a low ebb. Some young men con- 
ducted a school; I think they were young lawyers 
out of work. Young Sarmiento attended the school. 
There is a classic story told in Argentina reading 
books of how one day there came up a terrific wind, 
rain and hailstorm; tiles flew through the air, 
branches of trees were torn off and all was terror 
and confusion. "Today we will have a holiday; 
no muchacho will venture to come," remarked one 
Maestro; but just then they heard a persistent, if 
gentle, knocking at the great door. They made haste 
to open. There stood young Sarmiento with his 
books, drenched, wind-blown, frightened — but reso- 
lute. When the boy reached young manhood he re- 
solved to teach the common children of the place, 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 323 

to form a real public school. There being no build- 
ing available at first, he held his school under a 
big ombu tree. Ombus have enormous roots that 
lie upon the ground and reach out in all directions, 
often making capital seats. Under a great ombu, 
then, in the edge of the half desert plain, young 
Sarmiento taught his school. 

There was born perhaps 30 years before this 
time one Facundo-Facundo Quiroga, destined to 
be known over all South America as "Facundo." 
I cannot in one chapter make the reader see Fa- 
cundo and the times that he represented. It is all 
strange to us. He was Gaucho-bred ; or, as we 
might say, " cowboy-bred," only we do not breed 
cowboys from any especial stock. The gauchos were 
the half-Indian, half-Spanish dwellers of the plain, 
a class distinct from the dwellers in towns, and 
having, curiously enough, the same antipathy for 
and hatred toward townsmen as are shown often- 
times by our own cowboys. There, as here, the 
cowboy or the gaucho is frequently stripped of his 
earnings in short order when he reaches the town; 
he must feel that he has been unjustly treated many 
times. The Argentine gauchos were "ag'in' the 
government," against the towns that represented 
the government. There came the war of independ- 
ence, beginning about 1810, when the independence 
of a part of Argentina was declared, and after 
Argentina was free from Spain she found herself 
distracted by internal dissensions, torn by tumults, 
having rival leaders whose sole purpose was to at- 



324 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

tain personal success. This man Facundo was a 
political boss, brigand, stage robber and whole- 
sale murderer. He began his career by escaping 
from jail and killing seven men. He was withal a 
leader of the gaucho element in its running warfare 
against the town. Perhaps the most terrible man of 
modern history, his hands reeking with blood and 
his pockets full of plunder, he was worshiped by 
his followers in the camps, but he left behind him 
a sad trail of death and desolation. He was be- 
loved by his followers because he gave lavishly what 
he had taken with force and slaughter from the 
rich or the townspeople. 

Sarmiento wrote a history of Facundo which is 
a marvelous piece of writing. I think that there is 
no English translation, but I will venture to trans- 
late some of it, just to give a hint of the result of 
Facundo 's work. Here follows, from this book, a 
dialogue or interrogatory of a citizen of La Rioja: 

Question : ' ' What is the population of the city of 
La Rioja? 

Answer : Scarcely fifteen hundred souls. They 
say that there are only fifteen men of virility and 
standing in the city. 

Question : How many citizens of note reside 
here ? 

Answer : There may be six or eight in the city. 

Question : What number of lawyers have offices 
open? 

Answer : None. 

Question: How many physicians are there? 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 325 

Answer : None. 

Question : How many men visit in frock coats'? 

Answer : None. 

Question : How many young Eiojan men are 
students in Cordoba or Buenos Aires? 

Answer : I know of only one. 

Question: How many schools are here, and how 
many children? 

Answer: There are no schools. 

Question : Is there any public establishment of 
charity? 

Answer: Not one, nor any elementary school. 
The one priest, a Franciscan, has a few children in 
the convent. 

Question: How many ruined temples (churches) 
are there? 

Answer: Five; only the mother church remains 
of them all. 

Question : Do they build any new houses ? 

Answer : None ; nor repair the fallen ones. 

Question: What is the extent of the ruination? 

Answer : Nearly complete ; even the streets and 
avenues are in ruins. 

Question: How many ordained priests are 
there? 

Answer: There are only two in the city; one is 
a curate, the other a monk of Catamarca. In the 
province are four more. 

Question: How many fortunes of $50,000 are 
there? How many of $20,000? 

Answer : Not one. All are poor men. 



326 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

Question : Has your population grown or dimin- 
ished? 

Answer : It has diminished more than the half. 

Question : Does any sentiment of terror pre- 
dominate among the people? 

. Answer : The greatest. They fear to speak, 
even the innocent. 

Question: Is the mone}^ which they have good? 

Answer : The provincial money is all counter- 
feited. 

Sarmiento adds: "Here the works speak with 
all their horrible and frightful severity. Only the 
history of the conquest of the Mohammedans over 
Greece presents an example of so rapid a barbariza- 
tion and destruction of a people." That, then, is 
a picture of the condition of things when Sarmiento 
was a young man. We left him teaching school 
under the ombu tree. . Across the wide, dusty plain 
a horseman was discerned. He drew nearer and 
nearer, attracted no doubt by the sight of assem- 
bled people. As he nears the tree sheltered school 
he rides slower and slower. Finally he leaves his 
horse and approaches on foot. He listens to the exer- 
cises of the school for some time, hat in hand, 
gravely respectful. Then he bows a low bow to the 
young Maestro and walks away, mounts his horse 
and disappears over the plain. That was the meet- 
ing of Facundo and Sarmiento, the meeting of the 
old and the new order. It speaks well for the Ar- 
gentine people that they recognized worth in Sarmi- 
ento. He climbed from one position of service to 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 327 

another until at last he reached the presidency, and 
he was president for many years. He did much for 
Argentina. He introduced the Australian eucalyptus 
tree, and had a nursery where he grew small seed- 
lings. When a constituent wrote him asking a fa- 
vor he might get it or not; he was pretty sure to 
get by return post a few fine little eucalypts. Sar- 
miento visited the United States and had a deep ad- 
miration for our country and its institutions. He 
especially liked our schools, and through his efforts 
they were introduced into Argentina. I am told 
that the school system there is modeled after that of 
the United States.' , 

Among other evidences of Sarmiento's greatness, 
he recognized the great waste of womanhood in 
South America — the same waste that we observe in 
all Spanish countries. I mean the waste of com- 
panionship betwen the sexes. In Argentina one does 
not converse with women other than one's wife, 
sister and mother; a man does not introduce his 
friends to his wife. Nor is there contact or com- 
panionship between young people of opposite sexes. 
One of the richest assets of any nation is that of the 
utilization of friendships, and innocent friendships 
are possible between men and women. This the 
Spanish people have not yet learned, guarding their 
womenkind as do the Moors. Sarmiento sought to 
have the sexes educated together, thinking that this 
would be the first step in breaking' down the barrier 
that separates the sexes. Suffice it to say, however, 
that in this endeavor not very much has yet been 



328 in foreign fields 

accomplished; only the lower grades are taught to- 
gether. 

AN ARGENTINE SCHOOL TEACHER. 

In Ayacucbo on Sarmiento day the little plaza 
was finely decorated with flags and streamers; the 
old church was decorated. After the midday break- 
fast I strolled out into the town, which is common- 
place and poor in most of its features, but I stum- 
bled on to a double file of children, perhaps a hun- 
dred of them, ready to march somewhere, and their 
teacher, a fine, stalwart sehorita in black velvet and 
a big picture hat. It was interesting to watch the 
sehorita arrange the children, curbing the turbulent 
ones and petting the timid ones. As they began 
their march, the teacher bringing up. the rear, I 
went ahead and posted myself at the plaza where I 
could see the children enter. Soon they appeared 
from several directions, all passing me. Each little 
company was composed of children of one size, 
ranging from the smallest up to those ten or twelve 
years old. Each little troop had its teacher, a 
sehorita, more often handsome than not; each 
sehorita was well dressed and wearing a hat from 
Paris. I was struck, and amused, to see each 
teacher 's facial expression ; one could tell that look 
anywhere, and yet there was a difference; the teach- 
ers here had not "the worn, anxious look that too 
often characterizes American teachers; they were 
all of them strong and comely ; all had color in their 
cheeks and with ruby lips and fine Spanish eyes; 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 329 

and good humor, mixed with a sense of responsi- 
bility, dominated their features. They say that 
women in this land believe a bit of color in the face 
is a necessary part of the toilette, and if nature 
leaves it off they buy it. 

I studied carefully the little ones as they passed 
by me. Some were strikingly beautiful children; 
these children were Spanish or Italian, the proba- 
bility being that they were Italian. Some were just 
plain and some were very uncomely; the latter rep- 
resented the gaucho peons, of mixed Indian and 
Spanish blood. Take them as a whole they were 
probably a stronger, healthier lot than one would 
see in a North American town; the reason is worth 
seeking. Is it that there are no fires in the homes? 
Is it because the food is plain and breakfasts are 
served at noon? 

The little ones marched around an elevated plat- 
form, finely decorated with flags and flowers ; on the 
stand were some of the great men of the place, the 
Alcalde no doubt. Then the children sang the wild, 
strong, passionate music of the national song of 
Argentina — surely enough to stir one's blood. It 
"was amusing to witness how like a lot of North 
American school children they were: Human nature 
is the same the world over. I observed that while 
there were many races represented in this multitude 
of children, there were none of negro blood. Ne- 
groes are rarely seen in Argentina ; agriculture is a 
recent art. In days of slavery there was little profit- 
able use of the negro slave and he seems now to have 



330 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

been absorbed or to have migrated to a warmer cli- 
mate. 

When the song was ended there were fine 
speeches from the platform. Spanish men excel in 
oratory. Surely their speeches are carefully pre- 
pared, the sentences rounded and polished before- 
hand ; then they are delivered with superb manner — 
dignified, forceful, and at times impassioned. Their 
gestures are graceful and telling. I know of no 
North American orator who has so fine a delivery 
as any one of several men whom I heard. Added 
to this the fact that their speeches are admirably 
short, on this occasion of no more than five minutes' 
duration, and we have the perfect oration. After 
the speeches were over, the children and the rest of 
us went to the Government house for a short time, 
where more things were said, then to the old church 
for a short time. The rest of the afternoon was de- 
voted to holiday, and that night I saw marvelous fire- 
works, bringing to a climax a successful diesta. 

From San Augustine we went by diligencia to 
estancia Los Inglesitos. I had long wished to see 
this place, for here had lived fine, sturdy, skilled 
Englishmen for nearly 100 years. There is som# 
sameness about Argentina, but near the sea it is not 
like other parts. Here one finds little streams that 
they call rivers and that truly do have in them run- 
ning water. A little way to the east begin wide 
stretches of marshland. We were fortunate in find- 
ing Herbert Gibson at home. His family own many 
vast estates in South America, and he now only 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 331 

visits each in turn, counseling with the managers. 
We were greeted with a hearty English welcome. 
One could not ask for more. Always I will recall 
Los Inglesitos for three things : the truly beautiful 
and exquisitely bred Lincoln sheep, with fleeces of 
extraordinary length and finer than the typical Lin- 
coln; the homestead with its coziness, and the gar- 
den back of it. In several ways this estancia is the 
most notable one that we saw in Argentina. It is a 
small place, as Argentine estancias go, of only 10,100 
acres. The soil is not unusually good, though it is 
good black Argentine earth with tosca under most of 
it. It carries nearly 1,800 cattle and horses, and 
about 8,500 sheep. A study of the place was inter- 
esting as revealing the possibilities of sheep-farming 
in Argentina, but not as revealing things now being 
done by many estancieros. It is doubtful whether 
there are ten places in Argentina as profitable as 
this one. 

IN AN ARGENTINE GARDEN. 

I quote from my notebook: "It is May 27th be- 
low the Equator; that is November 27th in North 
America. I sit in the sun, out in a pretty little gar- 
den, trying to set down some things that will be 
worth remembering some day. I am in the south of 
the province of Buenos Aires, not far from the sea. 
What is*it all like? 

"At my back is a sung little white-walled En- 
glish-built house with tiled roof; though seemingly 
a tiny place, it is capable of storing away in com- 



332 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

fort a great many guests. Against the white walls 
clamber geraniums and honeysuckle vines. Over my 
head a palm lifts its protesting head. A formal 
garden stretches away with close-clipped hedges, its 
beds of brave chrysanthemums in bloom, and mil- 
lions of narcissi making strong growth (for the 
rains came a few weeks ago and it is as though 
spring had come, though in truth it is the beginning 
of their mild winter instead). In the garden are 
arbors of wistara and grape, roses in profusion, 
cabbage, cauliflower, gooseberries in hedgerows, 
raspberries, now ripe, maize as high as my waist 
and enormous squashes. Marvel of this climate, 
the squash vines are yet unkilled by frost, though 
I have worn a fur overcoat for weeks, and killing 
frosts occur in mid-summer. Flanking the garden 
on either hand are noble trees, eucalypts that rise 
half to the skies, tossing their glittering leaves in 
the sunlight, pines too, and great weeping willows. 
The garden slopes right down to a little river that 
ripples and splashes over a stony bed. It is rare 
in an Argentine camp to find a stream of running 
water and a marvel to find one that splashes over 
the stones. 

"About this garden, which charmed me, there 
was a strange air of sadness and loneliness that I 
could not fathom ; I thought it due possibly to the 
fact that winter was coming, and the sadness of that 
change was felt in the air. That evening by the fire- 
side Mr. Runnacles explained it to me. 'You like 
the garden, I see, Mr. Wing. Well, I keep it as 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 333 

nearly as I can just as my wife planted it.' I gave 
a start. He was not, then, a bachelor, as I had 
supposed. I made inquiry and he replied. 'We lived 
here for some years. She loved the garden and 
planned it all and planted it, and its keeping was 
always under her supervision. Then it became nec- 
essary for me to take her to England. She died on 
the ship and I buried her at sea. I have changed 
nothing in the garden since then. ' 

"That told the story, the plants, free from that 
loving but restraining hand, had gone wild and ram- 
pant, although no weeds were in the borders and the 
paths well kept, yet the place was haunted by the 
memory of the vanished hand. 

"The trees are musical with birds; one at least 
seems distinctly a mocking bird, singing away as 
though his heart were bursting with joy. The wind 
sighs and soughs in the pines and eucalypts and the 
sun is bright and warm when one is out of the wind. 
I go outdoors to get warm. 

AN ESTANCIA BUTCHER. 

"In the yard a man is busily dressing fine fat 
ewes that are to make mutton for the house of the 
manager, and the table of the peons as well. Very 
deftly the brown man removes the skins from the 
plump fat bodies. Seated expectantly in a circle 
around him are thirty cats of various sizes and col- 
ors, awaiting their chance at bits of meat. The cats 
are the police force that keeps rats away from the 
place. 



334 



IN FOREIGN FIELDS 



"Out in the pastures, cool, dewy and green, graze 
the Lincoln sheep. The rains came, after the weary 
months of drouth, and at once the good black earth 
responded, shooting up a wealth of grasses and clo- 
vers. Already the sheep are nearly all fat, everything 



S. 




A GAUCHO TYPE, OR NATIVE COWBOY. 

is rejoicing and the past is no more. Plant, animal 
and man put serene faith in the morrow, because of 
the happiness of today. Out in the field, down in 
that square pit, the size of a large room, the peo- 
ple are taking out a curious brown substance which 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 335 

looks for all the world like American plug tobacco. 
It is silage, made from green oats and alfalfa. It 
is simply put into these pits green, tramped in with 
horses, then covered with earth. Thus treated, it 
keeps perfectly. When feed is wanted, the earth 
is removed, the silage cut with an axe, taken out 
and fed to bulls in the paddock. 

"Our host is E. 0. Runnacles, until recently man- 
ager of Los Inglesitos. Senor Eunnacles is of En- 
glish birth. He is a successful stockman; he has 
Los Inglesitos in capital order. The place is one 
of the Gibson estancias. The Gibsons came to Ar- 
gentina eighty-five years ago and established them- 
selves near the sea. Here, as elsewhere, they have 
been notable breeders of Short-horn cattle and Lin- 
coln sheep for many years. The Short-horns are 
bred not for showing, on this estancia at least, but 
for the market. The bulls are many of them as good 
as we send to shows. They believe in good bulls 
and the results justify the belief. 

THE GIBSON ESTANCIA. 

"These Gibsons are men of independent thought 
and character. They breed a sort of Lincoln that 
is distinctly different from any that I have seen 
elsewhere. The origin of these sheep was of course 
Lincolnshire, where they were bred by Kirkham. 
His flock was dispersed in the '60 's, and taken to 
New Zealand. Thence the Gibsons imported them, 
bringing over 300 ewes. The sheep have been bred 
especially for their unusually good covering of long, 



336 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

lustrous wool. One can in short order select here a 
pen of sheep that would puzzle a judge who had not 
seen them to name the breed, they are so distinctly 
different from the regular English type. They have 
often a splendid covering over the heads, with locks 
coming down nicely over the face; also they have 
long, lustrous wool that almost drags the ground. 
They are somewhat smaller than Lincolns that mod- 
ern Englishmen breed, but they fatten astonishing- 
ly and are of nearly perfect form. 

"The management is in one important essential 
unlike any that we have seen. Each year there is 
plowed about twenty per cent of the land which is 
sown to oats, alfalfa and grasses. Thus the camp 
carries many more animals than camps left in a 
state of nature. For the rest, the care taken is of 
the customary simple sort. The sheep are carefully 
dipped four times a year and kept clean of scab. 
They are pastured out always of course, for no 
snow comes, and with moisture grass is green the 
year around. Lambs and wool are sold — astonish- 
ing amounts of wool — as much as eight and one-quar- 
ter pounds per head for the whole lot of sheep. 

"One thing here that impresses me much is the 
quiet energy of Mr. Eunnacles and the way he trains 
his men to care for animals. South America is not 
a land where kindness is customarily shown to dumb 
beasts. At Los Inglesitos there was no sore-backed 
or sore-shouldered horses and the sheep are han- 
dled with care and gentleness. 

"Herbert Gibson is one of the most original and 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 337 

brilliant men connected with agriculture whom I 
have met in the world. It was a delight to hear him 
tell of Argentina, past and present. Then the 
thought drifted to old England; we recalled mutual 
friends and finally I mentioned Wedderlie. Then 
with sparkling eyes spoke W. 0. Wills, the Scott, 
who is the new manager, 'Wedderlie, did you say, 
Mr. Wing? Have you been there?' 

" 'Yes, do you know Wedderlie?' 

" 'Indeed I do, man. I was born and reared on 
a neighboring farm.' What memories were awak- 
ened then, and it was long after the hour for farm- 
ers to retire when we reluctantly bade each other 
'good night.' 

"I find this place makes a splendid profit, far in 
excess of that made by most other estancias that I 
have seen. They plow land, grow oats, alfalfa and 
grass for the sheep instead of depending on native 
camp. They have a good class of sheep; they sell 
lambs for long prices ; they have had good manage- 
ment. E. 0. Eunnacles would make a thing pay any- 
where ; here, backed by such a man as Herbert Gib- 
son, on this good camp, it had to pay. Land here 
is worth $40 per acre. 

' ' The shadows have come ; the short May day is 
drawing to a close ; the chrysanthemums hang their 
heads; the parrot scolds and wipes his other eye; 
the cold wind sighs in the tops of the eucalyptus 
trees; my work in southern Buenos Aires is done. 
Tonight I reluctantly turn my face northward." 

The next morning on the Avenida, a respectable 



338 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

looking young man stepped up to me saying, "I beg 
your pardon, sir, but I am unfortunate. I have been 
working on the docks and now have no employment. 
I have spent the night on the streets and I am very 
cold." As he spoke he shivered wretchedly. I was 
glad to help him and wish him better luck. A South 
American port is no good place in which to be 
stranded. 

Speaking of this unhappy fellow reminds me that 
at the American consulate one saw frequently the 
drifts and wrecks and strays that are cast upou 
foreign shores — men begging to be sent home. This 
the consul was often able to do on returning ships, 
perhaps getting the men an opportunity to work 
their passage. The wage scale in South America 
is advancing, but it is still far below what it is in 
the United States. There is not the same apprecia- 
tion of the honorable character of common every- 
day manual labor that we have in the United States. 
I think few eminent South Americans would boast 
of having been at one time ditch-diggers or plowmen 
or shepherds, and rail-splitters in a treeless land 
are naturally out of the question. 

A young German business man of good education 
told me this story. When he went to Argentina he 
had difficulty in finding suitable employment. Rather 
than be idle he took a pair of horses and plowed up 
a forty-acre field and sowed it to wheat. He enjoyed 
the work. Unhappily, as he related, it took him 
years to live down the disgrace of having done this 
kind of work. 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 339 

IN WESTERN BUENOS AIRES. 

We spent a day in Buenos Aires, to allow the 
doctor to see his sweetheart. I read and wrote let- 
ters and engaged my passage home on the steamer 
Vasari, to sail July the 8th. It was amazing what 
comfort I felt with that ticket in my pocket. It 
had for some reason far more reassurance than did 
gold, and already it seemed to me that I had been 
years absent from home. We bought tickets then 
to General Villegas, a town in western Buenos Aires, 
nearly 300 miles as the crow might fly. 

"What a clean country Argentina is now. There 
is no dust; there are no chimneys, so there is no 
smoke. The locomotives do not smoke. Perhaps 
this is because coal is so dear that they must use it 
with caution. I find that I can wear a linen collar 
for days. I have been all day in a state of wonder- 
wondering that I am so warm and well ; that I am so 
fortunate in life, given work to do and strength to 
do it, given appreciative eyes and a chance to use 
them. Today all these things come over me, and I 
can sit here in the car and look across the seas to 
Ohio and see all the environs of Woodland Farm — 
the fields, the forest, the homestead, my seiiora with 
her cheery voice and radiant smile, and the big, 
sober boys who are mine. I can see that seiiora of 
mine walking about the lawn looking at the flowers 
and stoppirig to pass a cheery word with a neigh- 
bor or neighbor's children. I close my eyes and am 
in Paradise. The conductor stops to watch my ma- 
chine and to exclaim at it 'por pasatiempo?' 'A mi, 



340 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

seiior, " I smiling explain to him, and lie nods in 
appreciation. 

"What is it like outside? There are no trees 
except at the estancia headquarters or at the rarely 
seen villages. The peasants go over the land with 
two yoke of 'big oxen dragging American sulky 
plows, the men usually walking, as the oxen are 
none too strong after this year of famine. The way 
has been monotonous, but here and there rise fine 
eucalypts. As I write now there is not a tree in 
sight. We go straight west ; the sun streams in from 
the north, and it seems only natural that it should 
be so, since we become accustomed to things. For 
some reason today I am strangely filled with the 
joy of the world, with a sense of the essential order 
of things and with gratitude that I am given part 
in it. A little way to the southwest of us in Pampa 
Central three crops have been lost in succes- 
sion, and famine with starvation hovers hideously 
over the huts of the colonists, who because of their 
great need steal the sheep of the estancieros and 
devour them. The government is sending seed grain 
and food to these poor people. Let us hope they 
are to have harvests this time. 

"We pass through a hill. It is nearly or quite 
six feet high, and thus we pass through a cut of 
that depth for a little way. Whatever on earth made 
that rise in the ground? All around us for scores 
of miles is land as flat and smooth as it could be 
planed. General Villegas proved the typical camp 
town, drier and dirtier than some; but the hotel 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 34l 

was tolerable, and we slept well in happy anticipa- 
tion of the morrow, for then we were to go eight 
leagues across the plain by coach to estancia Blan- 
ca Manco, where dwelt a friend whom we had as yet 
never seen, George Wright. We were in the west- 
ern part of the province of Buenos Aires, a province 
half as large as all of France, and France is as far 
across in its longest dimension as from New York 
to Chicago. 

"It did not take long to secure a team of three 
horses and a light carry-all, and soon we were roll- 
ing swiftly out into the camp. A long, wide, straight 
road stretched away before us, farther than the eye 
could reach. It was not like anything in North 
America;, there were only a few houses or farms 
along the way. There were few places near town. 
Then one could ride and ride without seeing aught 
more than an occasional 'puesto' or small house in 
which lived some fence guard or peon, who looked 
after a pasture. Presently we came to an alfalfa 
field. It was a pretty wide strip. There were many 
stacks of alfalfa hay in it. Short-horn cattle were 
scattered about in the field. In the distance I saw 
next the sky a curious dark line, somewhat lumpy. 
I wondered vaguely; mayhap it was a 'monte' or 
some sort of forest planting. What could it be? 
Then I awoke to the fact that the line was composed 
solidly of cattle. There were a thousand or more 
grazing on green alfialfa in June, which is the De- 
cember of Argentina. If their alfalfa got short there 
were the stacks ready for them. The sunlight 



342 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

streamed down, though the air was cool. This, then, 
seemed a cattleman's heaven. 

"A great estancia house stood beyond the cat- 
tle, with its white walls, and about it were numer- 
ous dwellings and structures. It would have been 
an interesting spot to visit, but we passed on. There 
were eight leagues between us and Blanca Manco, 
and Blanca Manco held our breakfast. What an 
interesting soil study it was as we drove along. In 
the eight leagues we passed there was not one wa- 
tercourse. In places there was water a few inches 
deep in the road, extending for a quarter of a mile. 
Why not ditch it off? Where would the ditch run? 
It was 200 miles to any running watercourse. There 
is in fact no need of drainage, except possibly at 
some places in the roads. The rainfall has been 
so nicely proportioned that the soil takes up every 
drop. It is like the legs of the man, as specified by 
Lincoln: they should be just long enough to reach 
from his body to the earth. 

"This land is like that. With marvelous accu- 
racy the capacity of the earth has been proportioned 
to the rainfall. With a large rainfall it would be 
necessary to cut drainage canals hundreds of miles 
long. As it is, the sandy subsoil takes up all the 
water that falls ; in fact, it not infrequently cries for 
more. Whence came these thousands upon thou- 
sands of square miles of rich, level earth, so much 
alike in every part? What aficient river left this 
soil in the bottom of a shallow sea? Doubtless the 
great Parana should have the credit. We were in- 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 343 

terested to see the beginning of roadmaking ; men 
with wheelbarrows were grading np middles, wide 
and rounded. The sections of soil that they cut 
through were marvelous. The topsoil was black; 
under it was a friable brown earth, with a fine sandy 
subsoil. All of it was rich and capable of producing, 
with moisture, great crops of almost anything. 
What makes this special soil so good for alfalfa is 
that it has a porous subsoil that is not found in all 
of Argentina. It lets the alfalfa roots and the rain- 
fall down and thus encourages alfalfa to make its 
glorious growth. 

"Perhaps it was typical of South America to 
see these gangs of men with wheelbarrows making 
roads when horses could be bought for $25 per head. 
A few short years ago no man hereabouts knew 
how to work a horse except under the saddle. This 
soil could work very satisfactorily with road ma- 
chines or scrapers. We were glad to see any sort 
of road being built that would raise us above the 
water. There was no water on the fields ; there the 
earth had drunk it all down and the alfalfa was mak- 
ing use of it. Here and there, fields of oats were 
lushly green and were pastured ; men were busily 
plowing for wheat. 

"Reaching Blanca Manca, we drove into a field, 
meaning that we went 'across lots' to the headquar- 
ters. After passing three or four miles inside, we 
came to the house of a colonist who told us that we 
must go back and follow the road around, which we 
did, arriving just as they were sitting down to 



344 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

breakfast. We had a hearty welcome. 'Oh, Mr. 
Wing, why did you not let us know? We should 
have had something fit for you to eat. ' How well I re- 
member that breakfast, at mid-day — the muchness 
and the goodness of it. George Wright proved to 
be a Lancashire man, long in Argentina. His wife 
grew up in the country, and yet she has the man- 
ners of an English-born woman, kindly and hospi- 
table. For years they have read The Gazette and 
find it a never-failing source of pleasure. 

OVER ALFALFA FIELDS. 

"Soon after breakfast we set out to explore, 
with a pair of native criollo horses and an American 
buckboard. We drove miles and miles over alfalfa 
fields most of the way, among fat cattle and among 
some that were not fat, seeing the great Australian 
tanks of galvanized corrugated iron, round tanks 
sometimes sixty feet in diameter and eight feet deep. 
As we went, George Wright talked ; it is easy for 
him; he is an enthusiast. 'This is one of the small 
places, Mr. Wing; it has in it only 25,000 acres. It 
is worth now about $32 per acre. Would you think 
it possible that so late as 1904 this land was wild, 
covered totally with the coarse, innutritious grasses 
of the pampas and with no water apart from some 
shallow pools that early went dry? Here is the old 
mudhouse in which we first made our start at sub- 
duing the wilderness. How do we do it? We us- 
ually call in the aid of the colonist ; we let him land 
for sowing it to wheat. He plows it and sows wheat 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WTNG 



345 




346 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

for from three to five years; then seeds alfalfa and 
moves on. He sows from 400 to 1,000 acres of land. 
He gives us about twenty per cent of his crop, de- 
livered at the railway. When he has a normal crop, 
it is around twenty bushels to the acre ; when he has 
a big crop no one knows how much it is, for he can- 
not gather near all of it. An enormous amount is 
lost because of his inadequate equipment. He makes 
some money; we have one man, a Belgian, who has 
made a small fortune with us. Usually the colo- 
nist does not do that, and I have never known an 
Englishman to plant wheat at a profit; he makes it 
too costly a proceeding. The farming of these col- 
onists is very crude, Mr. Wing, and they rob the 
soil. It worries me to think of their methods and 
what may come from them of damage to Argentina. ' 

"Here I laughed and replied, 'Mr. Wright, na- 
ture has put in this soil enough plantfood for a 
thousand years. I feel sure that you need not fear 
the few years of wheat that the colonist has ; the al- 
falfa will restore the land in short order. I know 
of no land of so uniform and widespread a richness 
as this.' 

" 'Well, that may be so, but I am beginning to 
sow alfalfa on the fresh sod, turned by myself. 
Come and see my plowmen. ' 

"What a sight that was, and how it would have 
enthused any one loving to plow. Imagine a smooth 
pasture field from which the grass had been mostly 
burned off — a field without stick or stone within 
100 miles, limited only by the fences that were too 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 347 

distant to be in view. A dozen or more plowmen, 
each on his own particular land, turned over the soft 
black loam, using- English two-furrow walking plows 
with wheels. A native plowman had started each 
land and the furrows were as straight as possible, 
and so long that the eye could not discern the ends. 
'How long are your furrows, Mr. "Wright?' 

" 'Not very long; I do not believe in the long 
furrow — maybe a little more than a mile ; if they are 
longer than that I think it a little hard on the horses. 
As it is, the men travel about twenty-two miles a 
day. You see we require them to plow a definite 
number of furrows morning and afternoon. It is fif- 
teen miles back to the headquarters ; we move every- 
thing over here; these few squares of galvanized 
iron make their tents; they have dug the well in 
short order and the water is good. Their cook and 
feed for their horses are here.' 

"We drove among the cattle. 'The place,' he 
said, 'is not yet nearly developed, so we have only 
about 7,200 cattle at present arid about 5,000 sheep. 
We breed almost all of our own cattle on the alfal- 
fa, as you see. Alfalfa does no harm to breeding 
cows. It is bad for sheep, though; see what ruin it 
has worked with these Romney ewes. ' It was ratlier 
laughable ; the ewes scampered off as best they could 
as we charg-ed down on them with our team. I have 
seldom seen such ewes. They were so fat that their 
legs did not come down parallel, but were spread 
apart comically; their backs were so broad that one 
could have emptied a peck of wheat on any one of 



348 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

them without losing any of it off. As they ran their 
rumps shook with the accumulated fat. Indeed, as 
breeding ewes they were, probably, ruined, and yet 
they had been taken from the alfalfa and put on wild 
grasses for some time. 

FLOCKS ON ALFALFA. 

" 'We get hue, fat lambs on alfalfa pastures, 
but if we ever do a large business with sheep I 
think we will buy our ewes, breed them and when 
they get fat send them off with their lambs and buy 
more. ' 

"Through herd after herd of grazing Short- 
horns we drove, admiring the good breeding and 
the good flesh. 'This is a paradise, Mr. Wright, Why 
do you not plant maize, too? It goes so well with 
alfalfa.' 

" ' It has not yet been proved here ; we have the 
locusts, you know, and we have not labor enough 
to cultivate maize. What has been sown has mostly 
failed ; the practice is to drill it in and let it come, 
or go, as it likes. It has not yet made a good crop.' 
Later, on a neighbor's estancia, I saw a field of 
maize, quite a total failure; the weeds and grass 
were three feet high and the maize four feet. 'But 
I should not expect in Ohio much better results 
without cultivation'; I remarked. 'No, maybe not, 
Mr. Wing; but we have not labor, nor patience, for 
cultivating maize here and then we have drouth and 
locusts. We do better to stay with our alfalfa, I 
think. '" 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 349 

They sow a lot of seed — as much as twenty 
pounds to the acre, and sometimes it fails. It is 
sown, preferably in May or June — their late fall — 
and sometimes in August instead, their spring, 
and last year a very wide acreage, as large as my 
brothers ' farms and my neighbors ' farms combined, 
was lost. The land was a mess of weeds, as it would 
be in our southern states if alfalfa were sown there 
in the spring. ' ' Last year ^ sowed $20,000 worth 
of alfalfa seed," remarked Mr. "Wright. 

We came home to a good dinner. Mrs. Wright 
had provided for the North American guest most 
delicious cornbread made from yellow; meal. It 
was the first that I had tasted in. Argentina. Their 
maize is all of the yellow flint species and would be 
simply delicious if they would use it. What a good 
bed I had that night and how I enjoyed it after my 
forty-mile ride ! Next day we drove to another 
beautiful estancia, Drabble. The manager, W. Mell- 
ville, was unfortunately absent, but we were shown 
about by the very courteous mayodomo, Mr. Talbot. 
There we saw the stacking up of thousands of tons 
of alfalfa in the fields ; animals eat it at will. What 
superior bullocks we saw, too. They breed and de- 
velop splendid Shires at Drabble. There also we 
stayed for dinner and a cozy fireside, afterward 
racing with the train to see which first should reach 
the station. The ostriches leisurely plucked alfalfa. 

It makes one quite wish to go out there to farm. 
There are, however, difficulties, mainly due to the 
climate and locusts. George Wright had planted 



350 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

some thousands of small trees about his new place. 
They started well. A hailstorm came (they call it 
a " rough" storm), and he had 1,200 of them de- 
stroyed, so that they had to be cut down to the 
earth. They would, however, in this soil speedily 
make swift new growth again. He finds the box 
elder of our land one of the good trees for his cli- 
mate. For some reason that I do not fathom, the 
eucalypts do not thrive that far west. Then they 
have the locusts that come once in a while — per- 
haps yearly for several years, or perhaps none for 
several years. Locusts destroy gardens, trees, flow- 
ers and grain — all but alfalfa. 

THE WOES OF COLONISTS. 

I have kept up a correspondence with Mr. 
Wright since returning home and this is the strange 
tale that he tells of the behavior of the elements 
in 1912. I left Argentina, as it was well soaked with 
water. The colonists got their grain sown in some 
shape. It grew marvelously and promised a yield 
of thirty bushels of wheat to the acre. Harvest 
time came and with it rain. Now this strange land 
was not made for rain in summer; it will not bear 
the weight of horses or wagons when well soaked ; 
so the colonists took their binders to the field and 
the rich black soil, turned to mud, promptly engulfed 
them. ■ They could not harvest the grain. After 
a time in some manner they did get a part of their 
rank, tangled crop harvested; then came threshing. 
Traction engines proceeded out with threshers to 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 351 

get tlie grain; the treacherous black earth swallowed 
up the engines so that oft-times it took days to dig 
them out of the mire and set them on their way 
again. When at last the poor colonists got to mar- 
ket with their wheat they had only a fraction of 
what had grown; their expense had been dreadful; 
they were in many instances hopelessly ruined. I 
think, however, that of all the parts of Argentina 
that I saw, the opportunities for money-making were 
best in this great alfalfa-growing region, which ex- 
tends over into the state of Cordoba and also into 
Pampa Central. 

When a really serious effort was made to set up 
stock-raising in Argentina, leaving the old system 
in which the uncounted herds roamed at will over 
the vast, unfenced, unmeasured pampas, there was 
need of fences of some sort. There was not a shrub 
or tree for post timber ; wire had not been made 
cheap enough for use, so they fell back on that prim- 
itive barrier, the moat. Ditches were easily dug in 
this soil. To dig the ditches they imported Irish- 
men, just as we did in North America. Doubtless 
the Irishmen came meaning soon to go back to old 
Ireland; they ended by learning to love the land, 
just as already I, after barely 100 days, have learned 
to love it. Many of them forsook the spade and 
bought small flocks of sheep and rented land to put 
them on. I imagine the rentals were the merest 
nothing. The sheep cost but a trifle. They bred like 
rabbits. The wool only was sold. The thrifty Irish- 
men bought land; they became estancieros. Today 



352 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

their grandsons are men of influence and wealth. 
Quite commonly, they have intermarried among 
themselves, yet they all use the Spanish language 
more freely than the English, though commonly En- 
glish is yet the language of the fireside. 

A grandson of one of these Irish immigrants 
was my guide and interpreter throughout most of 
Argentina. He was a fine young man, educated at 
the Ohio College of Agriculture. He was a veteri- 
narian and a man of promise — Dr. L. P. Garrahan. 
It was at his suggestion that I made my last visit 
of study in Argentina to the estancia of his uncle, 
Robert Murphy, at his estancia La Anita, west of 
Buenos Aires, a day's ride by slow train. It was a 
lovely day in June — their December. 

ESTANCIA LA ANITA. 

Robert Murphy proved to be just such a man as 
one would find in the United States farming or in the 
cattle business, with maybe a little more culture and 
courtesy than we have had time yet to take on; a 
stout, healthy, vigorous man, every inch of him an 
estanciero and a lover of good cattle. His farm lies 
in the very good alfalfa-growing region, with the 
rich dark topsoil and the sandy subsoil that alfalfa 
loves. We went first to the estancia house — one of 
the comfortable and commodious, though modest, 
dwellings that rich estancieros provide for the com- 
fort of themselves and their friends. There was 
a good fire blazing in the grate, for the time was 
near mid-winter, and the night air was chill. About 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 



353 




354 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

the house were plantings of trees; willows that 
make fuel and shelter ; American black locusts ; 
red cedars (which thrive wonderfully) ; paraisos or 
chinaberry trees, which are proof against the lo- 
custs, and numerous ornamental trees, including 
some palms. The eucalypts here do not grow well; 
they seem to winterkill, though nearer Buenos 
Aires they grow marvelously, as they do farther 
south also, where it is much colder. The locusts 
had invaded his territory last summer. He had cov- 
ered over his choice trees and flowers with canvas to 
protect them from these horrid pests. While we 
were looking at the garden an enormous bird came 
flying with piercing cries, toward us. To my as- 
tonishment it settled down within two yards of us 
and continued for a little time to emit its loud 
cries. Mr. Murphy laughed and talked to the bird, 
which seemed pleased and began eating grass on 
the lawn, now and then joining in the conversation 
in a voice that could be heard half a mile. It was 
a tame chaja bird, looking somewhat like a long- 
legged eagle, but subsisting mainly on grass. 

We drove out to see the fields and the cattle, Mr. 
Murphy on the way telling us of his plans and pro- 
cedures. "I have other estancias. This small one 
of 5,000 acres I choose to make my home place. 
Much of it is now in alfalfa, and I aim to put more 
land still in alfalfa; then it will carry perhaps a 
fourth more cattle than it carries now. What is the 
land worth? It cost me in 1901 $24,200 gold, and to- 
day it is worth in the market $272,800. That shows 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 355 

how land values have advanced in Argentina. It is 
earning on its present value more than 10 per cent. 
It is valued at only about $54 per acre ; you see the 
quality of the land. How does it compare with your 
best land in North America 1 ' ' 

To this I had to reply that it was much like the 
best lands of Nebraska, with the advantage that 
here there is no snow or ice and cattle can of course 
graze the year round. 

"I have another place north of Buenos Aires with 
a much richer soil than this, and more rainfall, that 
I lease to men to grow linseed on. I get more than 
$10 an acre rental .for that land, and I value it at 
about $140 an acre, gold. But of course such values 
are not common in Argentina, and I do not see how 
land can continue to advance in value, because as 
a rule it can not earn interest on higher valuations 
than are at present common. 

CATTLE AND PEICES AT LA ANITA. 

' ' Well, here are the cows ; what say you of 
them?" They were simply nice, tidy, practically 
pure-bred Short-horns, with great lusty calves, won- 
derful to see. They were grazing the short alfalfa. 
It gave a fair bite and was green and, possibly, grow- 
ing a wee bit. 

"I am sorry that you did not come sooner; I 
recently sold my steers, under three years of age; 
500 of them brought $28,000, gold. I suppose many 
men do better than that in the United States, but 
these were young cattle and of course they had nev- 



356 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

er been fed maize or anything but grass and alfalfa 
that they picked for themselves. I sold also 55 
calves for $24.20 per head ; they went for slaughter, 
and I sold 380 cows, fat ones, for $32.56 each. All 
were grown on the place. The total sales of cat- 
tle thus foot up to $41,703, gold. Is that good for 
a farm of 5,000 acres in North America!" 

' ' I do not know ; our large land-owners do not as 
a rule tell us of their operations. I guess you are 
up with them, but tell of your expenses. ' ' 

"Well, here is my payroll; I am my own super- 
intendent. I have one capitaz who has wages equal 
in your gold to $422 a year; part of that is a pre- 
mium I pay him of 25 cents each for every calf that 
is raised. Then there are, all told, six peons whose 
wages are, counting food, $24.20 each per month. 
Then I suppose I pay out for extra labor during 
haymaking about enough to make my labor bill sum 
up a little more than $4,000 a year, gold. Mind 
you, that is allowing me for superintending $1,200. 
Then there are repairs and dip and all that. Well, 
all the expense foots up — let's see; may I put in 
interest on the investment at 8 per cent? Very well; 
let's figure a bit. Here it is: total expense, $31,486 
and total revenue from cattle, wool of my 250 sheep 
and pelts, $42,223. I am not borrowing money, but 
just allow that the land ought to earn at least 8 
per cent on the capital invested. What we get be- 
yond that is profit. We get more than 8 per cent, 
a little more than $10,000 or $2 per acre. I am sure 
you would count that very small in North America. 

"But we can and will do better when we get more 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 357 

alfalfa. We are going to lose a lot of cattle this 
winter. There is no escape for it. The locusts ate 
and destroyed our winter grasses — those that come 
from seed each year. Those grasses alone can make 
growth during the winter; men say that alfalfa 
will, but here is a pasture from which all cattle have 
been kept for more than a month ; there is no growth 
whatever." A heavy sigh came and a look of sor- 
row passed over the genial face of our host. Ap- 
parently he was right; he no doubt had to take the 
hides from many of the cows before August. 

"I do things in an old-fashioned way, Mr. Wing 
■ — a way that men with large places can not well imi- 
tate. For example, I take the cattle off the alfalfa 
at night and put them in paddocks, so that they can 
not trample it while the frost is on it. The frost 
does not harm the alfalfa, if it is not touched until 
it has thawed out, so we carefully exclude the cat- 
tle until the sun has warmed it again. That pays 
well. We have these large tanks fed by your Ameri- 
can windmills so convenient that cattle do not have 
to roam far to get their water. We handle our cat- 
tle as gently, I am sure, as you would on your stock 
farms in North America, and they are as gentle. 
Would you like to see what we can do with alfalfa 
feeding alone in the way of making fancy beef?" 

We drove to a small paddock where he had four 
fat steers, three years old, that he was feeding with 
a little alfalfa hay; they also picked green stuff. «It 
was incredible ; they were fit for the International 
show. They had thick fat all over them — far too 
much of it, the packers would say, and, being pure- 



358 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

bred cattle, well selected, they were very pretty. "I 
just saved these back to see what prices they would 
bring later on, when fat cattle are scarce. Will we 
not some day feed maize to our cattle? I doubt its 
coming soon, Mr. Wing. This is a glorious land, 
but a devilish one too, in some ways. Alfalfa, grass 
and sunshine are sure; all forms of crop growing 
are uncertain. Then our farmers are not cattlemen, 
as are your farmers in North America; they own 
nothing but the work animals they use and maize is 
dear to buy and our maize is very hard and flinty. 
It would require to be ground before it could be 
fed to cattle. We have no part of Argentina where 
maize or wheat or anything else but alfalfa is a 
sure crop, owing to drouths and locusts. Alfalfa 
is the bedrock on which Argentine prosperity is 
based, and year by year this foundation is widening. 

THE WORK OF THE VAQUEKOS. 

"Come and see the men marking some calves." 
That scene revived old memories ; it was done 
nearly in the same manner as we did it on the old 
Range Valley ranch. The cows and calves were run 
through a chute which separated them, putting only 
the lusty 500-pound babies in a corral by themselves. 
How fat and fine and pretty they were ! Then by 
hand they were caught by the necks with riatas, 
snubbed to posts and caught by the heels, thrown 
on their sides, all the men working afoot, because 
Mr. Murphy wished the babies treated gently. At 
this point his practice is new to me; he ties two 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 359 

feet together and lets the calves lie until all in the 
corral, or at least a number, are caught and tied. 
The tying takes but a moment; the other ropes are 
removed. They are then branded, as with us, only 
that the steer calves are branded down on the leg — • 
so low tha% the brand does not injure the hide. When 
much younger they are dehorned with caustic pot- 
ash or a chemical dehorner. He had not heard of 
our American use of common powdered concentrated 
lye, but promised to give that a test. 

That night, as I was undressing preparatory to 
going to bed, a man came bringing me a large re- 
volver, carefully loaded, which he handed me with 
a smile. "Why, I do not need this!" I exclaimed 
in astonishment. "I am not afraid." "No, seiior, 
but the patron desires you to have this by your 
bedside," was his grave rejoinder. I }uelded and 
in the morning, which succeeded a night of peace, 
Mr. Murphy explained. "I felt that you might 
wonder, Mr. Wing, at my sending you the revolver, 
but I have had so sad an experience recently that 
I wish all who are under my roof to have means 
of protection." Then he told me this story. Him- 
self kind and considerate, his peons were his de- 
voted subjects, happy to do anything whatever he 
requested. He employed, however, a new man, a 
stranger to the neighborhood, from Corrientes. He 
observed that the new man had a sneaking way 
about him, and seemed fearful of some impending 
event. Then he learned that the man was a refugee 
from justice, that he was, indeed, a murderer or 
worse. When he knew these facts Mr. Murphy went 



360 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

to the man and frankly but kindly told him that 
while he would not give him up to justice he could 
not have him longer about the place. The man sul- 
lenly assented and Mr. Murphy thought that he 
went away. One evening, however, as Mr. Murphy 
was driving to the railway station this man sprang 
out from behind a bush and attacked him with a 
large knife, such as every peon carries. Happily, 
Mr. Murphy also had his knife with its ten-inch 
blade, and, drawing it defended himself, stabbing 
the man repeatedly and being himself also dread- 
fully wounded. He escaped at last, and recovered 
from his wounds, while the man was never seen 
again, so he could not have been fatally hurt. " You 
see, Mr. Wing, that this is not yet a tamed and gen- 
tle country," remarked Mr Murphy. 

THE PLAGUE OF LOCUSTS. 

I learned many interesting things from Mr. 
Murphy. The locusts, or large grasshoppers, come 
swarming down from the North. The brood that 
arrives on wing does comparatively little harm, as 
the insects are mature. They lay eggs, however, 
in incredible numbers, and the young brood swarms 
over everything and destroys nearly all vegetation. 
After a time the insects rise up and fly away to the 
North again. The next year and the next they will 
return. Year by year they increase in numbers and 
destructiveness, until finally they overwhelm the 
country. "They fill the wells, stop the trains by 
opposing veritable barriers of their own bodies, ob- 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 



361 



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362 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

struct the rivers in which they drown and sometimes 
by the accumulation of their bodies form a bridge 
over which the rearguard may pass." 

There is a law that demands that the estancieros 
destroy the locusts. A happy thing it would be if 
that law could be observed, but what can a man do 
with 10,000 acres of land, a half-dozen peons and 
a million million locusts to kill? What they do is 
this. When they have notice that the "inspector 
of locusts" is coming they see to it that there is 
made ready a splendid breakfast, which is served at 
noon. They tarry a long time over the coffee and 
the wine that follows, and become exceedingly 
friendly. At last the inspector arises. "But sefior, 
the locusts. My duty ! What are you doing to 
destroy the locusts?" "Ah," the host replies. 
"Certainly. I forgot. We will go now to see. I 
will show you all." 

In a field or paddock a hole has been hastily dug, 
and some fuel brought, perhaps some straw. "You 
see this hole, sehor Inspector? Well, it is my plan 
to put the locusts in this hole, and here to consume 
them with fire. Ma}^ they burn for ever, the little 
devils." "It is well," says the inspector, who then 
rides away well content, having performed his duty 
and having the reward of a pleased conscience and 
a full stomach. 

EOADMAKING AND FENCES. 

Mr. Murphy loved a good road and kept in fine 
repair the bit that lay between his house and the 
railway, although he told me with some bitterness 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 363 

that certain of his aristocratic neighbors had gos- 
sipped maliciously over the fact that he and his 
son had worked at this road with their own hands, 
doing peons' work. Industry, in that land, seems 
a virtue to be kindled in the heart of a hireling only. 

Everything that Mr. Murphy did was well done ; 
his fences showed his usual thoroughness. We in 
North America have much to learn from Argentina 
in the matter of fences. Their fences far excel 
ours in strength, durability and efficiency. They 
rarely use woven wire, but large, smooth, galvan- 
ized wires, which they put through the posts, holes 
being bored for this purpose. There are wooden 
stays between the posts ; the wires pass also through 
these stays. The wires never rust, being of English 
or German manufacture and well galvanized. They 
are always splendidly taut, being held so by good 
ratchets, one to each wire. The Argentines know 
how to brace an end post so that it can stand 
against any strain — a trick that we should 
learn in North America. The way it is done is to 
excavate a little way beyond the end post and plant 
there a solid block of durable wood, a "deadman." 
From this a stout twisted cable reaches to near the 
top of the second post, usually set about four feet 
from the end one. A stout bar of wood horizontally 
between the tops of these posts completes the brace. 
The diagonal wire cable passes into the earth just 
where the end post emerges from the ground and 
anchors behind it, a few feet away. Thus the cable 
is not in the least in the way, and no force that 



364 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

can be applied to the fence will dislodge or move 
ever so slightly that end post. Moreover, it has 
taken the minimum amount of material. 

Mr. Murphy's big warm Irish heart welcomed 
all sorts of bird life about the place. Among the 
interesting birds was the "perdice," a small par- 
tridge-like bird, larger than our quail, with a long 
neck. It is said the bird is of the family of os- 
triches. Perdices are great runners and seldom 
fly. They are exceedingly neat and trim in appear- 
ance and make delicious eating. They ought to 
thrive in the southern states of the Union and in 
California, and should be introduced. Men catch 
them with nooses of fine wire on sticks, riding hard 
after them on horseback. 

FRIGORIFICOS AND PACKERS. 

We should have been glad to linger longer at 
La Anita, for there was an air of comfort about the 
place, comfort for man and beast, and it seemed 
thoroughly safe and sane from a farming and cat- 
tle breeding standpoint. With genial Mr. Murphy 
we went to Buenos Aires, where a few days' work 
remained to do. For one thing, the doctor and I 
made two journeys of study to "frigorificos," or 
freezing works — one at LaPlata and the other near 
the city of Buenos Aires. We found very little dif- 
ference in methods of killing cattle there and in 
Chicago. We found, in fact, that one great plant 
was owned by North American packers. At La 
Plata the steamers came close to the frigorifico and 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 



365 



the frozen carcasses were hurried on board ship, 
where they hung in long ranks, hard frozen, during 
the long voyage to England. Fine ships they were 
and they carried many passengers. 

It was amusing in South America to note in the 
newspapers the often reiterated statement that the 
advent of American packers and exporters of fro- 
zen meats meant the beginning of all sorts of terri- 




D1PPING TANK— ESTANCIA BLANCA MANCA. ARGENTINA. 

ble things for the estancieros. Seeing that the 
American packers immediately on their advent ad- 
vanced the prices for good live cattle, the estan- 
cieros were inclined to accept the inevitable. I sus- 
pect that the English and native-owned frigorificos, 
although not in a " trust," had been shrewdly man- 
aged to depress prices as much as could be. As- 



366 



IN FOREIGN FIELDS 



suredly the estancieros will fare better under our 
methods, for our packers are never averse to pay- 
ing good prices for animals of quality. 

Perhaps as English-looking a region as any that 
we saw was near LaPlata, where we passed for 
miles through a great estate with noble woods of 
eucalypts and other trees, and many gentle deer 
feeding in the open, grassy glades. And this re- 




AN ARGENTINE COW-BOY'S MOUNT. 

minds me of a wrinkle that I saw one day in the 
zoological garden. In a great open cage were many 
monkeys. Two large pigs kept them company and 
gleaned the morsels of food thrown on the floor by 
visiting people. The weather was. very cold and 
the monkeys rode on the backs of the pigs, thus keep- 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 367 

ing their feet warm. The pigs, accustomed to mon- 
key ways, did not object. The combination might 
work well in some of our zoological gardens. 

I left Argentina with real regret, conscious that 
in my short remaining term of life I could hardly 
hope to see it again. I had seen none of the great 
breeding farms on which are kept high-class pure- 
bred cattle and sheep. Sometimes one can find on 
such farms as many as 10,000 pure-bred animals 
kept in splendid order. Argentina is distinctly a 
foreign land; there is in it no hint of the United 
States, apart from the use of some of our agricul- 
tural machinery. Even that is being imitated in 
England and made there for Argentine trade. The 
people neither know us nor care much for us in 
any way. They have some faults, yet the better 
I knew them, the better I liked them. 

I spent one morning studying the central market 
of Buenos Aires. This is a wool and hide market, 
with considerable wheat also stored and shipped. 
It is the greatest market in the world and housed 
in probably the largest building in the world. Here 
a great part of the wool of Argentina is consigned, 
although there is a similar building of less scale at 
Bahia Blanca and much wool is exported direct 
from the various ports of Patagonia to Europe. 
The wool is stored indefinitely. It is bought and 
assorted. The wool destined for the United States 
is most carefully selected, to have it as light-shrink- 
ing as possible ; it is then skirted ; this process takes 
off the inferior wool of the legs and bellies as well 



368 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

as the heavy locks of the breech. From this mar- 
ket it goes to private warehouses, where it is. baled 
for export to England, Europe or the United States. 
A large percentage of the wool ultimately destined 
for the United States passes through London and 
is there bought by our buyers. Doubtless, a simi- 
lar great building in the United States, say in Chi- 
cago or New York where would come nearly all of 
our wool to be assorted, classified and sold, should 
be of great advantage to both manufacturers and 
producers. 

Sehor Estevan Castaing, the president of the 
market, showed us in person the market and the va- 
rious sorts of wool displayed therein. It is notable 
that the wools of the South, having in them more 
sand, are heavier than those of the province of 
Buenos Aires, while the wools of the North lack 
more or less in strength of fibre, although because 
of their light shrink they command high prices in 
the markets (the wools of Entre Rios, especially). 
Seiior Castaing says that the amounts of wool re- 
ceived shrink year by year. This is due to the lay- 
ing out of sheep farms in alfalfa and maize. He 
predicts that in time wool will cease to be a great 
item of export from northern Argentina, though the 
Patagonian provinces will continue to grow, with 
some rapidity, in their production of the staple. 

In all the world I have seen no such vast building 
as this. It covers many acres and is several stories 
high. It was interesting to walk to the several 
parts, finding in each one the produce of a separate 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 369 

province or region. Railways enter the building at 
convenient points. As illustrating the wealth of 
Argentina, I present the following table showing 
the volume of produce sold at this market from Oct. 
1, 1889, to March 31, 1910 : 

Wool 1,828,766,620 Kgs.* sold for $519,223,924 

Sheep skins 361,408,300 ' 90,715,538 

Cowhides 185,991,200 63,191,930 

Grain 1,189,740,000 " " " 35,215,228 

Various 47,229,860 " " " 14,473,257 

Total 3,613,135,980 Kgs. sold for $722,819,877 

During the last financial year (1908-09) the fol- 
lowing is the produce received and sold with prices : 

Wool 113,714,000 Kgs.* sold for $33,326,030 

Sheep skins 23,393,200 " " " 5,001,055 

Cowhides 15,649,200 " " " 5,320,62S 

Grain . . 90,985,000 " " " 2,976,748 

Various 3,551,300 " " " 1,101,992 

Total 247,292,700 Kgs. sold for $47,726,453 

*A kilogram is equivalent to 2.2 pounds. 

GLIMPSES OF MONTEVIDEO. 

Great river steamers ply between Buenos Aires 
and Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay. One leaves 
at eight in the evening and arrives at six in the 
morning. Usually the steamers are crowded with 
people. Montevideo is on the river, but at its 
very mouth, so one side of the city fronts the sea. 
One approaches through a big and sheltered harbor 
basin of hundreds of acres, protected by a gigantic 
seawall. One beholds rising ground, hills and rocks, 
evidences that one is in a new land, has left behind 
the eternal spaces of low, flat plain. Montevideo 



370 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

was founded, however, long after Buenos Aires, 
yet it is an ancient city, from a North American 
point of view, dating from the year 1717. It is 
solid, stone-built, substantial and picturesque in 
parts. 

I found myself in Montevideo in an environment 
quite unlike that of Buenos Aires. For one thing, 
Montevideo is a little city of about 310,000 people, 
while Buenos Aires has nearly a million more. Uru- 
guay, however, is a little country, with only about 
the area of Ohio and Indiana combined. There are 
long lines of granitic cliffs, many small streams of 
perennial water, and the trees, grasses and vegeta- 
tion are distinctive. And well as I liked the people 
of Argentina, I liked those of Uruguay better. They 
are not usually so rich ; they seem more friendly 
and more interested in one. I had received great 
kindness in Argentina, but the Uruguayans made 
special effort to be good to me and through me to 
show courtesies to our Government. 

I spent some time in Montevideo, because at the 
season of my visit I could meet many more estan- 
cieros in town than I could by going to their estan- 
cias. They would come to the city with their wives 
to shop and go to the theatre and enjoy the change 
of life and scene for a time. In Montevideo I en- 
gaged apartments in a sort of marble palace, the 
owners of which were temporarily reduced to the 
necessity of accepting lodgers. I was assured that 
my room had sun every day. That was, I think, true ; 
the sun came in from 11 :15 in the morning to 11 :30, 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 371 

then it forsook me, and it was not convenient for 
me to be in my room during that time. The sea 
winds swept in cold and chill; there was usually a 
hard frost every night, yet in that marvelous cli- 
mate semi-tropical plants, palms and flowers per- 
sisted in the parks, biding their time. I quote from 
my journal: f!| 

" 'Hark from the tomb.' It has been a fine 
enough day outside, but no ray of warmth has pene- 
trated these marble halls. I do not need an over- 
coat outdoors, but when I come in to write, I must 
put one on. I have been very hard at work, secur- 
ing data from great estancieros, among them Ale- 
jandro Gallinal. He gave me an account of one of 
his places where the land alone is worth more than 
a million dollars and the animals on it more than a 
hundred thousand. These are Uruguayan dollars, 
too, worth $1.03 in our money. Sefior Gallinal in- 
terested me because of his extreme thoroughness ; 
his book-keeping is so good that he knows the cost 
of every detail of the work of his estancias and 
even what it costs per day for food for the men. He 
values his land at $32 per acre. 

"Dr. Daniel Garcia Acevado went with me to 
call on Senor Gallinal. The doctor is worth de- 
scription. He is an 'abogado' or lawyer and has 
his office in his dwelling opposite my house. He is 
a small, dark man, rather intense, exceptionally in- 
telligent, and very kind and courteous to me. In 
some way he is connected with the Government and 
has taken it upon himself to help me with my work. 



372 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

On our way home this evening, we dropped in at a 
warehouse belonging to a native woolen mill, and 
saw there good stuffs and truly splendid blankets, 
thick, soft and warm. I never saw better woolens 
of the coarser, more useful sorts than they make 
here, but they tell me that they send the wool to 
Germany to be scoured and perhaps spun into yarn 
for the weavers. The Government is imposing all 
sorts of protective tariffs in order to encourage the 
building here of manufacturing industries. Unhap- 
pily, they have neither coal nor water power, so 
it will not be so easy as it was with us ; nor have 
they the great market that we enjoy. 

"Just now two of Dr. Garcia 's boys, one ten, 
the other twelve, I think, came to call on me. They 
are a revelation to me ; so courteous, so self-pos- 
sessed, modest and withal intelligent, interesting 
and interested. The custom here is to treat the 
boy at home as though he were a little gentleman 
and to teach him to be a little gentleman. I must 
say that the doctor has succeeded beyond what I 
thought possible. At school these lads have had 
English, so we read together, they correcting my 
Spanish and I helping them with English pronun- 
ciation. 

"I took a run out to the zoological garden with 
these boys. This we did at my invitation and cer- 
tainly I assumed that I was host, entertaining the 
boys. Judge then of my astonishment and amuse-' 
ment, when the older lad gravely insisted on paying 
the fares on the street cars, and tried hard to pay 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 373 

admission at the gates. I was the stranger, the 
guest; they were the hosts. 

"June 16: I have secured an interpreter, Sam- 
uel Aguirre, a half-Indian lad, merry-hearted and 
laughing, with nothing on his mind but his hair, 
which is thick, black and long. I like the boy and 
together we shall presently enjoy exploring the in- 
viting estancias. 

"June 20: Cold, cold, cold. How one hates to 
get up in the morning, tireless, bathe in cold water 
and dress. The curious part is that it seems to 
agree with me. I gain in weight and no one seems 
to have a cold in this country, or a cough, but many 
have chilblains on their hands. There is, however, 
a cozy English club to which I have access and 
where I go to sit by a cheery coal fire in the even- 
ings. It has been a happy day. 

THE URUGUAYAN AGRICULTURAL 
COLLEGE. 

"With Seiior Eugenio Z. O'Neill, secretary of 
the Association Rural of Uruguay, we went to the 
agricultural college. It was a lovely ride through 
tree-embowered and flower-decked suburbs. The 
road was fine ! it was made of crushed granite, and 
there were along the way little fields and orchards. 
There were fuschia trees and camellias in their waxy 
bloom ; orange trees, yellow with fruit, and all man- 
ner of interesting things. It is strange when the 
nights are so chilly to find that frost has done no 
harm to the vegetable world. Oats seem to be much 



374 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

sown in the little fields, for pasture and for forage. 
Appearances would indicate very good yields. 

"We found the agricultural college equipped 
with rather fine buildings and interesting profes- 
sors, all Germans, but they speak English and Span- 
ish. I was much impressed with some of these men. 
They have many plot experiments and all they lack 
is students, of whom they have not many as yet. 
Two of these professors, who are brothers, walked 
here from Eucador, taking four years to do it, and 
studying the world as they came over it. I can 
hardly imagine our people doing such a thing. 
These men are inseparables; they go together to 
study and observe their plots and experiments. I 
am delighted with the little agricultural college. 
Truly Uruguay may well be proud of it and some 
day, let us hope, it will have a thousand students as 
it deserves. 

"I went another day with Dr. D. E. Salmon, 
long chief of our Bureau of Animal Industry, now 
chief of the veterinary department of the Govern- 
ment of Uruguay, to see his new and splendid build- 
ings, where will be housed the great veterinary col- 
lege that the doctor is establishing here. The new 
buildings were being erected in what had been an 
old English garden, so that I roamed delightedly 
about looking at trees, shrubs . and flowers, some 
new to me and some old friends. I lodged in the 
same house with the worthy doctor, by the way, and 
often shared with him the heat of his kerosene oil 
stove, or sharpened for him his razor, and together 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 375 

we used often to dine at night at the Uruguay club. 
There we discussed many agricultural problems. 

BY RAIL TO MONTEVIDEO. 

"On train, June 24: We left Montevideo by 
train soon after daybreak. The roofs of the rail- 
way carriages were white with frost. I am very 
happy to get afield again, and I think that Samuel 
(my interpreter), is still happier, for he has not 
been out of the city into the real camp for seven 
years. Samuel's father was a Spanish priest, who 
got hold of some pamphlet that converted him to 
Methodism. Then he came to Argentina and in 
Entre Eios married a woman who must have been 
largely of Indian blood. Samuel is the fruit of 
that marriage, and the mother has had him in Mon- 
tevideo receiving an education from a Methodist 
school. Just now, he is a Government stenogra- 
pher; hence he is detailed to act as my interpreter. 
He is overjoyed to get to the camp again, after so 
long an absence from it, for he was country born 
and reared. I like the lad and enjoy his company. 
It is an inspiration to "chum" with a lad. 

"All the world is green along the way, except- 
ing the new-plowed fields, but it is a wintry sort of 
greenness. The sun shines feebly, and there are 
many tiny flowers in the grass, though what they 
mean by coming at this time of year is a mystery 
to me. We are passing through a region of small 
farms and gardens, with orchards and lines of euca- 
lypts, some of them very fine. The farm homes, 



376 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

however, are distinctly of the peasant type. There 
are men afield with oxen plowing, but the poor oxen 
are thin and look weary ; there have been four years 
of bad harvests because of drouth and locusts. The 
land rolls like parts of Nebraska, and the soil is 
black and must be naturally good. We go north- 
ward. It will get warmer as we climb over the 
curve of the earth toward the more direct rays of 
the sun. My fellow-passengers are all wrapped well 
in cloaks or ponchos and some have wrapped im- 
mense scarfs around their necks." 

We left the train at Durazno. The name signi- 
fies " peach," but it is hardly a peach of a village. 
There we took a stagecoach for Trinidad, perhaps 
thirty miles away. We made one change of horses. 
I was happy to sit up in front with the driver, 
wrapped in one of Uncle Samuel's army blankets, 
which, next to my fur-lined coat, was my most prized 
possession in South America. We had four pas- 
sengers, a young lieutenant of the army, gorgeous- 
ly appareled in red and gold; a schoolboy going on 
a vacation to his father's estancia, and a few men 
wrapped in their great ponchos, ordinary citizens 
of the country. We passed guard houses along the 
way with soldiers in them who came out to inspect 
us, possibly looking for some one. The country 
along the way was rather bare and undeveloped 
looking, with rock outcropping along the tops of the 
ridges and thin grass eaten close by hungry cattle 
and sheep. There was a new railway, done by North 
Americans. There were not many trees excepting 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 377 

where eucalypts had been planted. The homes were 
poor and primitive. 

REVOLUTIONS IN URUGUAY. 

As we drove along I reflected on the strange 
fact of Uruguayan wars and revolutions. We in 
North America are accustomed to laugh at these 
conflicts, as though they were not serious. We 
mistake greatly there. The Uruguayan is a brave 
man and a hard fighter. The wars are dread- 
ful enough. There are many killed and the 
manner of their killing is sometimes unspeak- 
able, because it is not usually convenient for the 
revolutionists to take and care for prisoners. Men 
told me that on each side it had been a custom to 
put prisoners to death by cutting their throats. 
There remains a dreadful hatred in Uruguay be- 
tween the rival parties — the Colorados, in power 
and having the government, and the Blancos, out 
of power and forever seeking by revolution to get 
in. Samuel told me that he was a Blanco and that 
no matter how many times they may be put down 
they would surely rise again; that there would be 
no rest until the hated Colorados were conquered 
and their government overthrown. As the majority 
of the people are Colorados, it is evident that a 
victory on the part of the Blancos would only re- 
sult in a short cessation of war, when it would be 
vesumed with greater fierceness than ever. 

The revolutions do not seem to have for their ob- 
ject any intelligible reform of government. In fact. 



378 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

the Colorados seem to give a fairly intelligent and 
progressive government; it is more a revolt against 
being governed by a class that is hated. The reason 
for that hatred is simply that every Blanco has had 
a grandfather or uncle or a brother or some other 
relative who has perished at the hands of the Colo- 
rados ; and the other thing is as true that the Blan- 
cos have inflicted dreadful damage upon the Colo- 
rados. It is a Kentucky fued carried to be a na- 
tional issue. There is one hope, however; some of 
the more intelligent and patriotic men like Dr. Gar- 
cia Acevada have formed a third party, pledged for 
peace and reform, and inviting adherents of both 
belligerent parties to join them. Not much has yet 
been accomplished by this movement, however. 

We could see the effects of the revolutions in the 
small numbers of horses in the land. At the out- 
break of a revolution the Blancos capture as many 
horses as they can and the government confiscates 
and removes all the rest, restoring them when peace 
is again established. When revolutions shall have 
ceased in Uruguay that little country will, I think, 
take a leading place in South America. It has the 
men of intelligence, education and ambition to place 
it there, and resources to back them. The land can 
support ten times its present population. 

IMPRESSIONS OF TRINIDAD. 

Trinidad is a large town with a fine plaza, all 
aflood with sunshine. From our hotel windows I 
could see a fine old church and a large and rather 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 379 

artistic castle or fort filled with soldiers. As it 
was Sunday morning, I slipped into the old church 
for a prayer, in which Samuel, as a loyal Methodist, 
would not join me. Then I walked in the old town, 
coming presently to the jail. First we entered a 
large jail yard where paced sentries with muskets. 
Along one side of the yard was a high iron fence 
and back about thirty feet the jail proper, consist- 
ing of a row of rather large one-storied rooms. The 
yard in front of the rooms was divided by the high 
iron fence into little yards about thirty feet square 
and in each yard were cots on which slept the pris- 
oners, wisely preferring the outdoors to the 
company that I assume would be in their stone- 
walled rooms. That morning the prisoners were 
out at the fence conversing with friends; often 
there would be women and children who had 
come to say "buenos dias" to their husbands 
and fathers, and perchance to bring them some 
small articles of comfort. Meanwhile, the guards 
discreetly turned their backs on the conversing 
groups, being much too polite to spy upon them and 
perhaps having some sympathy with the imprisoned 
as well as with the imprisoned 's gentle friends. 

I can not say that the faces of the "penados" 
or imprisoned ones favored the thought of their 
being turned loose on a sorrowing world. Spanish 
justice is, I think, fairly shrewd and just. While 
it may be unduly lenient to some, it shrewdly grasps 
the idea of which man ought, on general principles, 
to be kept imprisoned. 



380 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

We realized some of the disadvantages of revo- 
lutions when we came to hire a man with horses and 
carriages to take us on to an estancia that we wished 
to visit, the great Tidemann place. We had to pay 
him enough hire to have bought his horses and 
"coach," and the horses, hitched four abreast, had 
been afflicted with revolutions, locusts, drouth, fam- 
ine and, I think, some of the plagues of Egypt 
beside. However, thanks to the liberal use of the 
driver's whip, they bore us along right rapidly. 
The distance was some ten leagues, more or less. 

We left the tidy little city of Trinidad, a city 
far from "the madding crowd," never yet having 
heard the shriek of the locomotive, though it has 
heard the horn of the automobile ; we left the town 
and its nearby small farms and orchards, and soon 
in a little valley through which flowed a small 
stream, came to such a scene that I rubbed my eyes' 
in wonder. There was the cornfield in shock, just 
as at home, in part unhusked ; there were green fields 
of wheat or oats (mind you, this was in June, mid- 
winter) ; there were willows by the stream; there 
was a farmhouse and farmyard. Though the house 
was South American, it had about it a homely tang 
of the North and the cocks crowing in the farmyard 
and oxen munching cornstalks completed the inter- 
esting picture. But it was not Iowa or Ohio, for the 
next rise brought us to the open pasture lands, with 
only in the far distance the clumps of trees that 
betokened estancia houses or puestos of the labor- 
ers or peons. 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 381 

THE LIFE OF THE CAMP. 

We watched the life of the camp as we rode along 
together. Owls sat gravely on the fence posts. Sam- 
uel told me of the Englishman who demanded ' ' lech- 
usa fresca con aceite" at the restaurant; that is, 
he asked for "owl, fresh, with oil" when he really 
wished "lechuga" or lettuce. He was indignant 
when after a long wait the willing moso brought 
from the bird market nearby a small owl in a tiny 
wooden cage. Many small birds flitted about ; hares 
as large as our jack rabbits coursed in the pastures, 
and the roadside was dotted with small flowers. 
Along the way we passed many flocks of sheep of 
various breeding. Some flocks lacked much in uni- 
formity, as was natural with careless or shifting 
owners. At last, in the distance, lifted a dark belt 
of trees in full leaf, eucalypts. "Estancia Tide- 
mann ! ' ' exclaimed our driver. Looking back, we saw 
Trinidad in full view, though many miles away, and 
we were yet more than an hour from the estancia. 

"Whoa," and the driver drew in the horses, while 
Samuel sprang to the ground and pounced on a little 
animal, cowering under a shrub. At once the little 
beastie curled up in his hands resignedly, tucking its 
queer, wedge-shaped head between two bony wing- 
like parts of its shell, its horny tail over its hairy 
abdomen and covering its stomach with four strong 
feet, armed with claws. It was an armadillo or "mu- 
lita" (little mule). It had a shell like a turtle only 
jointed so that it could move it about in one way and 
another. A curious little animal this, meek when 



382 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

captured, yet resisting with all its might any touch 
on its front; the back cares for itself. This one 
had been caught and ear-marked by some playful 
boy. It "played possum" with us, yet now and 
then made a vigorous effort to escape. That night 
it entered into its eternal rest, in the stomach of 
our cochero. 

We turned into a charming avenue of trees that 
led to the estancia house. The winter sunlight fil- 
tered down through the interlaced branches of great 
eucalypts. All were in leaf and many in flower. 
It was a place of hush and mystery, apparently 
of great age, yet only twenty-five years planted. 
We turned down a side-road and came to the great 
stone-built estancia houses, and there met us that 
grave and genial Otto Steinich, the manager. So 
we gave the horses to the cochero with much money 
of the land, and with gladness followed our host 
into the house where a real fire bloomed in a real 
stove of iron and all the house gave out that un- 
mistakable air of cheer that comes from Germany, 
mother or grandmother to all of us Anglo-Saxons. 

Soon we were out to see what we could before 
night— the* trees, first, the farm and men cutting 
iush oats, knee-high, to be fed to milking ewes or 
horses or bulls thin in flesh. We saw the orchard 
and the piles of bitter maize. They have there now 
a type of maize called ''maize amargo" that will 
not be eaten by locusts, though the grain is good 
and the '"bueys" or working cattle -eat the forage 
when it is dry. 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 383 

THE MANAGEMENT OF AN ESTANCIA. 

In the evening we talked of the problems of 
management, here and elsewhere. Mr. Steinich told 
me the astounding thing that they had not dipped 
their 55,000 sheep in fifteen years, save that some- 
times they had dipped some small band that had 
been accidentally exposed to scab. We talked of 
stomach worms, too, and of footrot, and of type in 
sheep, and I learned that he had what he called the 
"German Merinos," of Negretti type, very nearly 
approaching our Eambouillet type. His simple 
method of eradicating stomach worms was adopted 
after trying many other things. Brine, as strong 
as it can be made, is the cure. It is administered 
thus : the sheep are fasted for twenty-four hours, 
or at least deprived of water, then let go to the salt 
water and allowed to drink all that they like of it. 
Then they are kept for six hours from fresh water, 
and afterward are allowed to drink. Only about 
two in 1,000 die from the treatment, which is ad- 
ministered in time of need, to 55,000 sheep. It is 
plain that there is merit in a remedy that does not 
depend on catching and drenching each individual. 

The cure for footrot is the result of years of 
trial, as well. They take 10 pounds of flour of ar- 
senic, 15 pounds of crystallized soda and 55 pounds 
of water, boiling together for two hours. They 
carefully refill the kettle from time to time, so that 
the solution does not become too concentrated from 
evaporation. After the horn is carefully trimmed 
away, all the suspected sheep are run through a 



884 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

shallow trough, containing no more than two inches 
of this liquor. Care is taken that the sheep do 
not at once go to pasture, as their feet would poi- 
son the grass. 

The flocks were worth studying. Some of the 
sheep were in the barns. It was a fine type of wool 
that the big Delaine-like ewes carried. It was 
white, clean, "opening like a book," with enough 
oil and not commonly too much. The estancia com- 
prises 42,500 acres and the land is appraised as 
worth $32 per acre. It is rich and black only where 
the granite rock sticks up through it. It is divided 
into many pastures of from twenty to 500 acres. 
The flocks are from 250 to 1,500 together, seldom 
more. They are classified according to ages, more 
or less, and according to character, when it is ad- 
visable. Of the 55,000 sheep, there are really no 
more than two or three types, not widely differing. 
They were feeling well, already in good flesh, and 
yet only a few weeks back they were dying sadly. 
Within the year just past 10,000 had died of the ef- 
fects of drouth and locusts together, though it is said 
that the drouth had been so bad that even the lo- 
custs died for lack of feed. Now with the green 
and fairly abundant grass loss would cease. 

ESTANCIA METHODS AND PRACTICES. 

What of management? The fences were of 
splendid construction, with stone posts and tightly 
strained wires. Lambing is in September and Oc- 
tober ; the , lambs are castrated and tails docked, 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 385 

as seems the way the world over. Shearing is by 
machines, forty of them in use; the pay is four 
cents each to the shearer, besides his food. Thirty- 
seven men work on the place with one English capi- 
taz and several Uruguayans. That is less than one 
man to 1,000 sheep, but so good are the fences, so 
strong the gates, so well systematized the work 
that these men do it all beautifully. There are also 
5,500 cattle and 200 horses on the place. The peons 
have $13 per month and their food ; that costs about 
$100 per year. What does it cost to operate a big 
place like this? Charging five per cent interest on 
the total investment, the cost was some $73,026 per 
year. The receipts from sheep were $78,890; from 
wool, $71,222. The sheep averaged 7.04 pounds 
of wool. For the wethers they received only $1.50 
each. They were not very fat. It is not a type of 
sheep producing a wether of the highest class. 
Counting interest on investment the wool cost to 
produce 16 cents per pound. It sold for a little 
more than 18 cents. 

Samuel and I stayed two nights at the Tide- 
mann estancia. The place was a delight, with its 
trees and flowers, the life of its pastures, the or- 
derly and business-like administration of its af- 
fairs, far excelling anything that I have seen in 
North America, and the quaint, rambling old house 
with its great corridors in which I got lost. I loved 
its sunny porches, bath, books and beds. Here one 
could not but reflect what a paradise Uruguay 
might be when revolutions ceased and men went 



386 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

there to upbuild and beautify. Some months later 
in Germany, at Oschatz in Saxony, I saw on the 
farm of Otto Gadegast the source whence came 
some of these splendid German Merinos of the 
Tidemann estancia. The type is excellent, where 
the object is to produce exquisitely fine, soft, wool 
for clothing women and children. Unhappily, it 
does not seem to pay very well to produce the fin- 
est wools, they are not grown on the backs of big, 
robust, easily-fattened sheep and the hungry world 
demands fat mutton and coarser wools, paying 
nearly as much for the one as for the other. 

OVER URUGUAYAN PASTURES. 

It was with real regret that we left the hospitable 
Tidemann estancia with its teeming pastures. Our 
host sped us on our way in an American two- 
wheeled sulky, very comfortable indeed, with all 
our baggage. Two hours ahead of us were sent 
two spare horses to await our arrival along the 
road. Manager Steinich mounted on a fine, big 
horse, accompanied us for many miles pointing out 
interesting features, until at last we reached the 
limits of the estancia and were on the broad but 
little traveled highway that led in a general di- 
rection westward. 

We had as a guide a swarthy peon who had a 
look of trustworthiness, and our horse was a good 
one, so we were content. Frost lay over the earth 
and a skim of ice was over the tiny pools. A strange 
land is Uruguay. It is not hilly, yet it undulates 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 387 

nicely; the earth is black and seems rich, and yet- 
here and there the granite rocks stick up through 
the soil, maybe in little points, half concealed by 
the grass and again in great rounded masses. Be- 
tween the lines of stone there is usually a good 
depth of soil. 

Hour after hour we jogged along, the distance 
some forty miles, more or less. Always on either 
hand were the far-reaching pastures of green, dot- 
ted with sheep or cattle or with both classes of ani- 
mals in the one field. Very wide were the pastures, 
usually, with 200, 400 or more acres in one enclos- 
ure. Occasionally we would pass a farm with its 
maize and winter oats, lush and green, and its 
wheat just coming up. Once we passed some sort 
of country store and drinking place, near which 
lounged swarthy men, their horses saddled close 
by. Birds flitted along the way; little flowers hug- 
ging the earth bloomed bravely. 

WHERE HEREFORDS THRIVE. 

The homes of estancieros are wide apart; only 
two or three did we pass on the way. These places 
belonged to Basques or small proprietors only. At 
last, as the shadows lengthened, in the short win- 
ter day- of late June, we reached a puesto, where 
the guide secured a gate key. We turned in to the 
pasture lands of Los Altos. Ahead of us was the 
array of gleaming white buildings at the headquar- 
ters, and an hour or so more of steady jogging 
across the pastures brought us to our destination. 



388 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

Along the way fine Lincoln sheep came into view, 
as also did grand old Hereford cows, with splendid 
lusty calves. I could win fame if I could show 
photographs of those sheep as they stood, heads 
erect, watching our approach, or scampering off, 
fleeces flying, as we drew too near to please them. 

Manager C. Francisco Gepp met us smiling. "I 
had been hoping you would get over our way. 
Won't you join us for a cup of tea?" We joined. 
Forty miles in the crisp air of Uruguay gives one 
an appetite. Some neighbors had dropped in — a 
young wife and mother and her husband — bright, 
interesting native-born folk of English blood. It 
was a shock to discover that the children did not 
speak English. They learn Spanish first because 
it is the easiest of languages to learn (so they tell 
me) especially for children. I wish I were a child; 
maybe I should then have better success with my 
tongue. 

After tea we inspected the Herefords. There 
were some sappy youngsters in sheds, knee-deep in 
bright straw, munching oat hay. Unhappily this 
is not yet an alfalfa country but oats grow well. 
When they plow very deep it may be found that 
alfalfa will grow also. It is pre-eminently a Here- 
ford country. Mr. Gepp loves the " white-faces" 
and breeds them with good judgment. He has at 
Los Altos 25,000 acres on which there are 4,000 
Herefords and 9,000 Lincoln sheep. Of the cat- 
tle nearly all are practically pure-bred, though only 
about 200 of them are registered. He breeds the 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 389 

low, thick, beefy kind, that we so much admire 
in North America. 

Dinner enjoyed, we sat by a blazing wood fire, 
though to my amusement the outer door was wide 
open, frost crystals forming on the grass. South 
America is no place for cold-blooded North Ameri- 
cans to visit for pleasure in winter. 

We got up with the lark the next day and drove 
over wide pastures, again looking at glorious Lin- 
coln ewes. All were neatly shorn on their udders 
and about the places where wool is easily soiled, 
ready for their lambing, which was soon to come. 
Just before lambing time, Mr. Gepp kills a few 
sheep and strychnines their carcasses for the foxes. 
He has good lambings because his sheep are never 
crowded. He averages about 90 per cent. He does 
not dip. He learned the art of shepherding from 
the Tidemann place and absorbed the idea that it 
is a disgrace to have scab and need forever to be 
dipping. Therefore he dipped so thoroughly one 
year that his sheep have been clean ever since. He 
is careful that they do not get too near to neigh- 
bors' flocks; usually there is a pasture between 
them, ^3 

His steer calves are carefully dehorned at an 
early age. He gives them wide room and they are 
always fat, locusts and drouth permitting. The 
estancia is not overstocked and yields a good profit. 
Yet it must end ; the edict has gone forth, ' ' Sell the 
place." Last year the half was sold and yielded 1 
$32 per acre, going chiefly to Swiss dairymen. Now 



390 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

the rest of it is to be divided and sold. The land 
yields good interest on that valuation, but the own- 
ers wish to cash in while they can secure what 
they consider large profits. 

AN ATTRACTIVE WHITEWASH. 

At Los Altos I learned how to make whitewash 
of lime nearly as durable as oil paint. Take leaves 
of cactus plants, cut them in slices and pound 
them a little ; pour water over the mass and let it 
stand for twenty-four hours. The whitewash is 
then made with lime, using this water, much in the 
usual manner. The result is a brilliant white coat- 
ing that will neither rub nor wash off. It adheres 
perfectly to galvanized iron, that ubiquitous build- 
ing material of South America,, and protects it 
from corrosion by the elements. It makes all it 
touches a dazzling and permanent white. Our 
ranchers in the Southwest are surrounded by wild 
cacti ; there is a hint here for them. Dwellers in 
our southern states can grow the large species of 
cacti in waste corners and make their whitewashes 
durable. 

I strolled into the garden where I plucked a few 
violets and a Japanese quince, looked at the apple 
blooms and medlars, the orange trees and the om- 
bus, and reflected that they say that here the nights 
are usually too cool in summer to perfect the maize 
of our cornbelt. Perhaps also the climate is a lit- 
tle too dry for it at times. Then I strolled across 
a pasture thick with grass and young bur clovers, 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 391 

just springing, and saw the fine, matronly Here- 
fords and their dazzlingly white-headed babies. 
Then I entered a plowed field, a new breaking, that 
was just getting its cross-plowing. This was done 
with two yokes of great criollo or Hereford oxen, 
each attached to an American riding plow.- Swar- 
thy peons, each one having a knife with a six- 
teen-inch blade thrust through his belt, guided and 
encouraged the "bueys" with long prod poles of 
bamboo, although these well-fed oxen needed little 
prodding and received little. They went along 
nearly as rapidly as draught horses. Mr. Gepp 
prefers the Hereford ox. Most men think the na- 
tive criollo more enduring, but the Hereford is 
probably the more tractable. It was interesting to 
hear the drivers address their beasts in Spanish, 
which evidently was well understood, yet they 
were but dumb oxen; and I, with a man's brain 
had labored almost in vain for months to grasp 
the tongue. Some of the plowmen were almost 
as black as negroes, yet with no trace of negro 
features or blood. They descend from Canary Is- 
landers, I presume. 

THE RICH SOIL OF URUGUAY. 

The soil, rich, black and full of humus, has been 
increasing in fertility since the days of Noah. 
Great, fat earthworms were turned up, just as one 
sees in the best soils of North America or Europe. 
They astonished me more than anything that I 
had seen, convincing me that this land was made 



392 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

for civilized, cultivating, boy-rearing man. Given 
a black, rich soil, full of earthworms, a man with 
his feet on the earth and his head full of good 
purpose, while his hands are busy, and a woman fit 
for him — one hand rocking the cradle while the 
other kneads the bread — and her soul up among the 
stars — given that combination and the greatest 
events possible can occur. "Wanted!" cry these 
prairies, "wanted! men, and women, and trees." 

The sun streams in as I write this late winter's 
afternoon. The birds call, children's voices are 
heard in the garden outside, and from the field 
comes the cry of the ox-drivers, "vamos, vamos, 
vamos bueys ! ' ' 

And so you see a place in South America is not 
a tumbledown, ramshackle affair, with rotting, 
leaning buildings, broken gate, disorder and con- 
fusion reigning everywhere. Maybe there are such 
places, but at Los Altos, as at Tidemann's, the pic- 
ture is far different. The fences are splendidly 
strong, all the posts in exact line and all the wires 
taut as fiddlestrings. All the gates are strong and 
swing easily. On all the camp there are neither 
dead animals nor bleaching bones. The buildings, 
while of simple design and comparatively inexpen- 
sive construction, are each in perfect order and all 
gleam white with lime wash. Not a tool is out of 
place. I have seen no finer order or neatness in 
Europe or North America. I should rather seek for 
a neater, better-kept place in Argentina or Uruguay 
than in North America. 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 393 

From sun to sun the peons work cheerfully, for 
their wage of $12 to $15 per month, with food. The 
bell rings to call them to work and to signal when 
to cease, as in our southern states. It is all very 
interesting to see the Anglo-Saxon brain working 
energetically south of the equator, accomplishing 
splendid results, just as it accomplishes in North 
America. It is interesting to see the cattle, sheep 
and men retain their quality and virtues under the 
Southern Cross, just as under the North Star. 

MEMORIES OF SANTA ANA. 

Of all the memories of South Amreica that lin- 
ger in my mind, those of Santa Ana are the pleas- 
antest. We reached Santa Ana by coach from Los 
Altos, a happy drive full of interest and pleasant 
anticipation. I recall vividly that the roads were 
incredibly wide with much grass growing in 
them. Often they would be like narrow pastures, 
so that traveling sheep or cattle could get food. 
Occasionally we dipped down into a hollow where 
there were trees and a little brook, like one would 
see in our own land, but quite different from what 
one would expect or find in Argentina. I recall 
that we passed a herd of rather thin cattle being 
driven along the highway. They were hurried near- 
ly as fast as they could be hurried and perspiring 
and panting for breath. I remarked the unwisdom 
and cruelty of this, and received the astonishing 
information that it was done purposely for the good 
of the cattle; that in winter time when they are in 



394 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

thin flesh and must eat much coarse, hard grass, 
there is danger that they will become constipated; 
that the cattle receiving occasional vigorous stir- 
rings-up of this sort come through in far better con- 
dition than those that do not. As this is confirmed 
by practical English and Uruguayan estancieros 
alike, there must be truth in it. Possibly here is 
a hint for some of our southwestern ranchers. 

We scared flocks of small green parrots from 
the trees that overshadowed the brook, saw many 
doves, much like our North American turtle doves, 
but smaller, and occasionally in paddocks or pas- 
tures we saw ostriches. My boy interpreter Sam- 
uel was as happy as a lark; every detail of the 
glad, free life of the camp was a joy to him. I quote 
from my journal: 

"I am sitting in the sunshine under the back 
porch of the estancia house. A grave old green and 
gold parrot is at my side ; he surveys me philo- 
sophically. I have just moved him into the sun and 
he seems half to smile. There was another, small- 
er native parrot here by me, but he scolded so 
that Miss Gepp came gravely to take him away. 
There was also a nice little native dove. The woods 
are full of doves and they coo deliciously in the 
mornings. The long, low, homey, English-built es- 
tancia house is set down in a grove of giant euca- 
lypts and the trees are as full of parrots, oven 
birds, palomas (doves) and other birds as they can 
well be. I wish I could have time to write of all the 
delightful things that tempt me. We have had a 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 395 

ripping time since leaving Montevideo. This morn- 
ing, which was a bit frosty, Samuel took a cold bath 
and was afterward chilly ; in fact, I myself am wear- 
ing my fur coat, so he asked me if he could take a 
run. 'Certainly; the best thing you can do; just 
bring me a nice tail feather from that ostrich yon- 
der. ' The field is dotted with ostriches and in the 
cool mornings they run with their wings lifted, just 
for exercise, I have no doubt; but Samuel did not 
overtake an ostrich. 

HOME LIFE ON AN ESTANCIA. 

"I am writing with my gloves on for the reason 
that my fingers are tender and the cold keys hurt 
them. I have awful chilblains on my fingers. Did 
you ever hear of such a thing! It seems common 
here. But what fine fires we have evenings in two 
fireplaces at this estancia. Henry Gepp is a type 
of the old English gentleman. His father was a 
clergyman and headmaster in a big school in Derby- 
shire. He has been many years in South America. 
He has had ten sons; eight are living, and seven of 
them are managers of estancias. One is at home, 
a young man, and two daughters are with him. An 
aunt keeps the house : the mother is dead. 

"My coming here was quite accidental. I had 
not heard of Mr. Gepp at all, but I had a letter to 
his son whom we visited at Los Altos. He told 
me that his father hoped to meet me; so he put us 
into a coach drawn by four good horses and we came, 
journeyed thither, some thirty-two miles. To our 



396 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

astonishment they were looking for us and luncheon 
was ready. The son had sent a courier ahead to 
warn them. My last days in the camp are my hap- 
piest ones. The house is much like a gardener's 
cottage in England with its low walls, tiled roof, 
casement windows and tiled floors. It is cozy and 
rather spacious. It is full of books and papers 
and has the best country library that I have ever 
seen. Among the volumes are my own books, which 
Mr. Gepp honors me by reading. 

"Unluckily the magnificent eucalyptus trees 
have worked havoc with the orchard; there is left 
but one orange tree and its oranges are small. The 
eucalypts sap the moisture. Away from the trees, 
however, he has a beautiful garden of half an acre, 
and so beautifully tilled that it is quite weedless, 
Although the nights are frosty, yet the hardy 
things grow well. The soil is a rich, black loam 
that is easily tilled. In the spring he will plant 
melons and all sorts of summer-growing corps. Just 
now the aunt came with a great basket of biscuits, 
the sort they buy ready made; they come in big 
gunny sacks and are hard as iron, almost, but awful- 
ly good, if one has strong teeth. She came with a 
basketful of them that she was selling to a boy on 
horseback, a son of one of the pasture-tenders. The 
aunt said : ' See what a lot of these one gets for 20 
cents.' They also sell mutton to the peons and 

perhaps to some others of the neighbors. 

"This morning I had a happy experience. The 
sun was just lighting up the frosty camp, and all 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 397 

the trees were full of birds, singing. One bird 
sang almost precisely like a robin. I wonder how 
he learned the song. If I hear it again, I will try 
to jump up and see which one it is. There is one 
bird that looks a wee bit like a robin. 

" 'Auntie' had brought me a kettleful of hot 
water for my bath and I had that big wide English 
tub affair of tin, so I gaily bathed and then in the 
keen, frosty air afterwards, rubbing myself and 
jumping to get warm. Then I came out to my 
breakfast, with Samuel Aguirre. I ate uncooked 
rolled Quaker oats with milk. I had asked for them 
in that form. The family had breakfast much earli- 
er, but one seiiorita sat down to pour the coffe and 
play hostess. She and 'Sammie' talked, mostly in 
Espahol, but I could understand some of their 
words. I ought to talk it more than I do. Then 
we went out to see Mr. Gepp, who was in his gar- 
den working, taking out some salsify, and so I 
helped him, and we talked gardening. He says that 
he is able to keep the garden always weedless. He 
has the finest collection of American gardening 
tools that ever I have seen, and all were polished 
and shining. In the afternoon we drove over the 
camp. It is a little place of about 5,400 acres with 
some 7,000 sheep. Great ledges of rough, rounded 
granite rocks stick up through the soil and then 
there are wide stretches of smooth pasture lands 
between. He took us to see where there was soft 
limestone; he is eager to get it crushed for his 
garden and for the alfalfa, which has not been a 



398 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

• 

success. While we were driving we came to a 
school, the only one in leagues and leagues around. 
The children were just going home, mostly on 
ponies, and I asked that we be allowed to visit the 
school. The building was a long, low wooden shed, 
unpainted, with a roof of thatch and a floor of black 
earth, quite hard and very clean. The senorita 
lives in the school, with her mother and younger 
brother. They have a few little trees and some 
flowers near the house and a fine caladium in a tub 
inside, safe from the frost. There were no ceilings 
to the rooms, so they must be practically as cold 
as out of doors. The senorita was very pretty and 
intelligent. She asked us to have tea, which we 
did, in her neat dining-room with its roof ceiling 
and wooden sides, which were hung with some good 
pictures. As we sat at tea I told her some things 
about the teachers in our own land, and especially 
that we could not keep them long, for they married. 
She laughingly replied that here they seldom mar- 
ried but remain teaching till they were 50. I doubt 
it. Then we went into the school-room. The desks 
were good, much like ours in North America; the 
earthen floor was very clean and the books good, 
furnished by the State. I noticed a wall map of 
Uruguay and one of North America, each of the 
same size. 

"How the hundreds of parrots in the trees chat- 
ter. I wonder what it is all about. We go today to 
drive over a neighbor's estancia, a very great place 
belonging to Alejandro Gallinell. This morning 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS, E. WING 399 

I arose late, so breakfasted alone ; but the young 
daughter sat beside me and talked; she had been 
shy before. She has never been in school even for 
one day. Auntie taught her. She reads and loves 
'Little Women' and good American books. The li- 
brary is excellent. 

"My host has gone through many revolutions — 
those sad and sinister happenings that prevent 
Uruguay's development and constantly menace its 
happiness. Because of revolutions he keeps no 
horses, hiring men who own their own mounts. 
He has bred cattle and sheep in thousands. 'It 
is a very different world, Mr. Wing, from that 
with which we are familiar in England, and no 
doubt it is as different from what you know 
in America,' he said. 'We make many mistakes 
coming down here and undertaking to do things. For 
example, the owner of this place had a delightful 
garden just above the house, with also an orchard. 
About thirty-five years ago he planted small eu- 
calypts about it. They looked lovely when they 
were young ; they broke the wind and all that. Now 
they are near 100 feet high and the garden and 
orchard are totally ruined; the trees have sapped 
every bit of the moisture and life from the soil. 
Then the great trees have attracted the parrots, 
as you note, which do a lot of damage, and 
the neighbors complain of them. I have shot 
many, but when one dies a hundred come to its 
funeral. I love gardening. Come see the begin- 
ning that we have. As you say, it is a glorious 



400 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

soil, still it is not very far down to the rock. We 
ought to have it half full of growing things by now 
— cabbages, English beans, lettuce, turnips, carrots 
and spinach, but it has been too dry to get all 
planted, so you see the land half bare. We have 
another chance; in the spring we can plant corn, 
squashes, watermelons and many things that you 
grow in North America. Then if the rains come 
fairly well, and the locusts do not come we shall 
be living from our garden nearly all the year. We 
can grow potatoes, and sweet potatoes, too, if the 
season is right. What we lack is any regularity in 
seasons. And then we have terrific rains that wash 
the soil, and winds that blow away both soil and 
seed, so that gardening is not so simple a thing as 
in England or America. I love all forms of animal 
and bird life. These ostriches are wild and yet 
one of the old cocks will eat from my hand. When 
I am working in my garden, little birds come to 
gather the worms that I turn up. I observe that 
one sort of worm is eaten by one bird and another 
sort by a different bird. 

"I purchase many of my seeds from North Am- 
erica and have grown fine American maize here, 
the Learning and the Golden Wonder. Did you ob- 
serve the little black skunks on the camp? You 
see how tame they are. I once did not allow them 
to be killed and they grew very common about the 
place. One day the maid in the kitchen heard some- 
thing moving about in a pot that was under the 
stove; investigation showed it to be one of these 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 401 

skunks. We carried it carefully out and down 
across the stream before letting it go, but in no 
time it was back again and in the same warm spot. 
It had to be killed. Later we learned that the 
skunks would kill chickens, so now we do not en- 
courage them to come about. They have no odor, 
when undisturbed. The fur buyers here do not pay 
much for them. 

. " I hardly know what is to come to this coun- 
try; it is changing fast. Time was when we had 
many English families in this neighborhood; now 
they are nearly all gone and the few remaining 
English owners are selling their places. We had 
a church once, not far away. Now our family is 
the one remaining to attend. Land is worth about 
$32 per acre ; that tempts the owners to let it go, 
although I do not see what they will do with their 
funds that would be better than leaving them here. 
Some are going to Brazil, where lands are said to 
be good and cheap, but there are many difficulties 
up that way, I understand. Be it as it may, agri- 
culture is coming in and many estancias will go in 
that way. And the native farmer is very bad; he 
cultivates very little indeed, and lets the land grow 
up in weeds. He does not understand the princi- 
ples of moisture conservation by cultivation. The 
original farmers here were many of them from the 
Canary Islands. They are dark people and not 
negroes; they make capital ox-drivers and fairly 
good agricultural labor. There is great danger that 
under careless farming with the deluges of rain 



402 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

that come the soil will some day be washed from 
the slopes and the land practically ruined. Only the 
level places on the hill summits and the little val^ 
leys should be plowed." 

A happy evening followed. The old living-room 
had a fine fireplace. We piled it full of eucalyptus 
wood, and the quebracho of the north, wood as hard 
and heavy as anthracite coal. We sat by the cheery 
fire and talked. Beside the blazing fire was a pile 
of good literature. 

CROSSING OF BREEDS OF SHEEP. 

Mr. Gepp believes in cross-breeding. He uses 
Shropshire and Romney rams, pure-bred rams and 
cross-bred ewes, assorting the ewes at the beginning 
of each breeding season and putting them to rams 
most suitable. I was much interested in seeing 
how he keeps the sheep from his neighbors' fences. 
He builds low, parallel fences distant about six feet 
and the cattle can eat over them or step over them 
to get the grass, while the sheep do not jump over. 
The height is about thirty-three inches. It is a great 
object lesson for South America. It teaches that 
there is no excuse for a man's having scab in his 
flock even although the neighbors may have it. 

Santa Ana, Henry Alleyn Gepp, the aunt, the 
daughters and the fireside linger in my memory. 
Ever faithful, since my coming home to America 
Mr. Gepp has been a good correspondent. He has 
kept me posted as to the news. The rains came; 
the year followed good ; there was a wealth of grass; 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 403 

it was a "fat year," and he sold his wool for the 
top price in Liverpool. The household kept well, 
the melons throve in the garden, and while he did 
not write it to me, I know well that the forest of 
giant eucalypts behind the house is yet musical with 
the tongues of myriads of birds. Mr. Gepp escaped 
terrible losses when there were revolutions, because 
he was beloved of all the countryside. His was a 
manner of perfect courtesy and kindness to all whom 
he met, and it came from a good heart. One finds 
men of this type in odd places. 

Time did not permit me to go farther afield in 
Uruguay. There were native estancieros all around 
me ; I did not try to take account of what they were 
doing because as a rule they were not doing things 
very well, and I was informed that it was doubtful 
whether they could tell me what it cost to do what 
they did. They were not, as a rule, making much 
money ; that was evident. Their cattle were usually 
ill-bred, although to their credit they are buying 
better bred bulls as fast as their means will allow. 
Their sheep were almost always scabby and of mixed 
breeding. I had secured in Montevideo from large 
estancieros, exact costs of wool and mutton produc- 
tion. I had seen enough estancias to give me a 
mental picture of what they were like. My work was 
done, and the good steamer Ionic was nearing port 
to take me to England. 

I left Mr. Gepp and his household at Santa 
Ana with sincerest regret, for it was a place where 
one could happily spend weeks or months. 



404 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

MARKET STOCK VALUES IN URUGUAY. 

"What," tlie practical American stockman will 
ask, "in a nutshell is there in owning and operating 
these great estancias in Uruguay?" To those men 
who bought their land cheap many years ago there 
is the largest profit in operating estancias today, 
and the profit increases year by year, as prices for 
meats advance. With the advent of the North 
American packers and their up-to-date methods, I 
look to see fat cattle and sheep sell for much more 
money than they do today. Market quotations for 
August, 1912, in Montevideo, are as follows : Oxen, 
"especiales," $40 to $45; fat and heavy, $32 to $34; 
common to fat, $28 to $30. Steers, "mestizos" (of 
improved breeding), "especiales," $32 to $34; fat 
and of good weight, $26 to $30; fat, $20 to $24. 
Calves, "especiales," $12 to $14; fat, $10 to $12; 
common, $6 to 8. Steers, natives ("criollas"), 
"especiales," $24 to $26; fat and heavy, $20 to $22; 
common, $18. to $20; inferior, $24 to $16. 

I think it safe to say that these cattle would have 
brought about double these prices, perhaps more, 
in Chicago. Prices for sheep show even a greater 
discrepancy, selling at the estancias as low as $1.50 
each, and ranging up to several times that price for 
the best fat wethers delivered at the frigorificos, 
but always below prices in the United States. Eu- 
rope is the market for the enormous surplus pro- 
duced in this country. There seems now an enor- 
mous margin between what the estanciero receives 
for his fat steer or wether and what the consumer 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 405 

must pay for it in England. I surmise that the 
killers and exporters of Uruguayan meats are mak- 
ing large fortunes in the process. 

The Uruguayan government with what seems 
commendable wisdom is endeavoring to move the 
European consumers to Uruguay, by means of a 
protective tariff designed to stimulate Uruguayan 
industries. Let us hope they may have a fair 
measure of success. 

As to wools, in April, 1912, market quotations 
in Montevideo were, for fine Merinos, 17 to 18 
cents, ranging thence down to 15 cents for "com- 
mon, good, "while cross-bred wools sold for 15 to 
17 cents. I quote from my journal: 

"July 5: Yesterday was a busy Fourth and 
there were enough Americans in Montevideo to cele- 
brate it right well, albeit quietly. Our minister, 
Mr. Morgan, gave us a reception for one thing and 
we met many who were great, some who were good 
and possibly one or two who were both good and 
great. I walked in the old town then to where I 
could see the sea and the waves dancing in the win- 
ter's sunlight. They looked friendly to me, seem- 
ing to say, 'I am your way home.' I had never be- 
fore seen the sea when it had to me a friendly look. 
I saw ships out at sea and wished devoutly that 
my own good Ionic might speedily come to bear me 
away northward, toward loved ones and familiar 
scenes and toward warmth. 

"It is midwinter here now. A peon was in the 
plane trees of the park, plucking off one by one the 



406 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

remaining leaves that had not sense enough to 
fall. At the great park, the Praclo, it looks wintry; 
the geraniums, although not killed, are ill, but still 
the strange eucalypts bloom, unreal and unearthly 
trees. There has been a chilling fog all day; to- 
night the cheery fire in the English Club will be like 
a bit of heaven. There is in this town the best 
restaurant, all things considered, that I have ever 
seen. It is quite large, and kept of course by Ital- 
ians. The food is of the best, the prices are moder- 
ate, the service is good and there is excellent music 
every evening." 

A GOVERNMENT DINNER. 

My work in Uruguay was ended; I Was ready to 
go as soon as the steamer came, but before I went 
a happy surprise, awaited me. The Government 
gave a dinner in honor of my Government, our 
President Mr. Taft, whom I represented, and my- 
self. The dinner was in the best hotel in the town 
and in the finest dining-room. A long table was 
piled with flowers, great luscious roses, violets, 
ferns and waxy camellia Japonica in many sorts, 
assuredly the loveliest lot of flowers that I had ever 
seen on a table. There were present a number of 
high Government officials, including the very help- 
ful Minister of Industries, many great estancieros 
and a few Americans and Englishmen ; but, follow- 
ing a Latin custom, there were no women present. 
It deeply touched me to see what had been done in 
honor of the United States, a country doubly dear 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 407 

to me from my long absence. It was a good dinner, 
for I remember it. That is a test. 

Afterward there were speeches. At the end 
there was a general call that I should speak. I 
tried to beg off, for my Spanish was lame, but they 
insisted that I might speak in English and that it 
would be translated by a young man who had come 
especially for that purpose, so with many misgiv- 
ings I accepted the honor. I began by telling them 
how beautiful a land I had found Uruguay; how 
from granitic soils had come the strongest men ; 
how, in fact, the men of Uruguay had impressed 
me as being well-born, brave, manly and intelligent. 
I praised their cattle, sheep and horses, and then 
I did a very daring act. "Will you pardon me, 
senors, if I now speak of another matter? It is 
this : I had for some days driven from one estan- 
cia to another. I had admired the beautiful white- 
walled estancia houses, the fine wool; sheds and 
shearing sheds. On a hill at last I espied a long, low 
building with brown, unpainted walls and a roof of 
straw. I drew near to this building. Many chil- 
dren emerged therefrom, and behold, it was a 
school. I entered the school. I found a beautiful 
and lovely senorita, the teacher of the school. Her 
building had walls of rough boards, ceiling of straw 
and a floor of earth. It was in the midst of the 
winter season and the air was very cold, yet there 
was no place for fire, and no place where the niiios 
or the senorita could warm their chilled hands. 
Thev were fine niiios. Tell me, seiiors, is it fair 



408 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

to the ninos, is it fair to the sefiorita, that the sheep 
should be better housed than they?" 

As I spoke I could see a rising tide of anger 
and resentment among my hearers. I grew more 
and more frightened at the unkind and almost un- 
courteous thing that I had done. However, the 
Minister of Industries had been before the Minis- 
ter of Education and he followed me with keen in- 
terest. When I had finished, he sprang to his feet. 
"Let me speak, senors; let me answer Mr. Wing. 
I am glad that he has told you this. He has done 
us a service. Let me tell him that the fault is with 
my countrymen who would rather spend money for 
cannon and powder with which to kill one another, 
than to spend it for the education of their children. 
This condition will not endure forever. You have 
not seen all, Mr. Wing. If I could have directed 
you, if I could have known that schools were of in- 
terest to you, I could have shown you twenty fine, 
new schools erected this year, each one with stone 
walls and floors of marble or of tile. Education is 
coming to our camps, Mr. Wing, as well as to our 
cities, but we lag; we need awakening; therefore, 
I thank you for telling us this." 

CLIMATIC CONTKASTS. 

I quote from my journal: "Down here no sun, 
no cheer; in the United States, too much sun, too 
much heat, baking clods, ruined harvests, and many 
dying of heat, while the same condition prevails in 
Europe. What a strange world it is. The Ionic is 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 409 

in touch with us by wireless; my South American 
visit draws to a close." 

BOUND FOE GREAT BRITAIN. 

I fear my readers can not understand the fever 
of impatience that possesses one who has for some 
months been in a strange land and at last finds him- 
self turned homeward. He is like the bird at the 
time of migration; he can not be still an instant; 
he longs to stretch his wings and fly and fly and fly 
— until at last he can drop down in fields that he 
knows. The Ionic is a good ship that runs from 
London to New Zealand, thence by way of Cape 
Horn and Montevideo to London again. She had 
for her commander Captain E. C. Roberts, one of 
the finest captains of the big White Star fleet, and 
one of the most interesting men I have ever known. 
Our consul at Montevideo, P. W. Goding, was a 
chum of Capt. Roberts ' and received a wireless mes- 
sage from him asking him to come aboard for a day 
at Montevideo. This he was happy to do and those 
two men spent a hard day of earnest conversation, 
ranging from the atomic theory and old Egyptian 
civilization down to socialism and the Mendelian 
laws. Two more evenly matched men I never knew. 
Mr. Goding was of great help to me in Montevideo. 
He is one of the newer- type of consuls — educated, 
tremendously in earnest, with a big brain and a big 
fund of common-sense. I found the passenger list 
a small one ; there were only some seventy-five peo- 
ple beside those of the second and third-class, but 



410 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

there were many interesting ones among them. 
Some were from New Zealand, some from Austra- 
lia and others who took the ship with me and com- 
ing from Argentina or Uruguay. On the whole, we 
made a companionable ship 's company and if I ever 
was unhappy rest assured that it was my own fault. 
As we left Montevideo and plunged out into the 
big ocean, we were met by a tremendous storm. 
Huge seas drenched the decks, but we were all old 
sailors and did not much care. The next day after 
sailing, the air grew warmer; the second day saw a 
very comfortable atmosphere indeed. We ap- 
proached Rio de Janeiro and all was delightful an- 
ticipation. We were coming so quickly up from 
winter into warmth, not into summer exactly, nor 
even spring, but at least into warmth. It was a su- 
premely happy day. I quote from my journal: 

AT RIO DE JANEIRO. 

"What a happy day it has been. We were up 
early and had an eager, excited breakfast. What a 
lovely ride it was ashore on the launch, dancing 
over the blue waves past the bright and gay build- 
ings on the islands of the harbor. When ashore, 
we walked a little way, and after posting letters, 
we began to inquire where ran the tram lines that 
led to a suburb called Tijuca. It is high up in the 
mountains. We found that the Portuguese under- 
stood our Spanish quite well. Then we boarded a 
trolley car and set off. We admired as we went 
along one thing after another — the palms, the tree 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 411 

ferns on the mountain sides and the quaint and 
sometimes pretty houses with their pretty gables 
and tiled roofs. There is but little Spanish archi- 
tecture; there are only a few of the typical square 
building's with patios that one sees in Argentina. 
The tendency is to set buildings in gardens and to 
give them roofs, almost Swiss sometimes. 

"It was almost too cool. To make it worse, it 
showered, gently, from time to time. But we were 
under roof. How beautifully green were the won- 
derful mountains, how the tree-tops lifted in the 
wind and the bamboos swayed. There were not so 
many flowers as in mid-winter, yet great masses 
of poinsettias flamed out here and there. The tram- 
way climbed up and up the narrow mountain valley, 
past hamlets and villas set on mountain sides and 
past a roaring mountain stream, and here and there 
we caught sight of marvelous waterfalls, hundreds 
of feet over cliffs. At last we reached the end of 
the journey, at the hamlet or village of Tijuca (ti- 
huca). It was like being in some marvelous green- 
house. Bamboos actually arched across the perfect 
road for a long way; it was all lovely as heaven. 
We met a man coming along with a great Hindu 
humped ox and a cart; it was big, fat and a some- 
what wilful ox ; the man led him with a small rope, 
and they seemed rather jovial companions. I asked 
him if the ox was a 'buey nuevo' and he replied yes, 
that he was that, and contrary. I think well of 
these Indian cattle for the tropics. The only thing 
that marred our joy was that rain continually 



412 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

threatened, and when we consulted the watch we 
were overjoyed to find it past twelve and we were 
all hungry. So we walked back to a small hotel in 
some very interesting grounds that were full of rare 
trees, spices, coffee, giant bamboos that are as yel- 
low as gold and shine as though varnished, and 
many strange and adorable things. 

"The dinner amused us. There was no soup, 
but fish, a big fish for each of us; good mutton 
chops and macaroni (for one; they explained that 
there was not enough for three, which further 
amused us), and ending up with fruits. There was 
a new fruit, like a little melon in shape, an orange 
in size and a Japan persimmon in taste, only there 
was no astringency. I rather enjoyed it and so did 
the ladies. We got the seeds for them to take to 
Tucoman. We ended with black Brazilian coffee. 
I drank coffee nowhere else, but always here. As 
we were drinking the coffee, the waiter told us of 
the strange sugar that they furnished us and how 
it was made. It is an unrefined sugar, very white, 
sweet and delicious. He used fluent Spanish, and 
that was pleasant; he knew the peculiarities of the 
tongue as spoken in Cordoba, Tucoman, Buenos 
Aires, Paraguay, Texas, California and Spain as 
well. He was very interesting to talk with and to 
m y j°y> I could understand nearly all that he said. 
When they brought the bill our joy was complete. 
It had not been a sumptuous repast, but the bill was 
for 15,000 reis. I did not have that much money 
in Brazilian currency, but we managed to pay all 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 413 

right, and it seemed to be a fitting end. We argued 
that it was the highest dinner we had eaten in many 
a day, far up the mountain, and high in all ways. 
(1,000 reis = nearly thirty-five cents.) 

"We walked in the garden a while and the 
waiter, who was not busy and who was interested 
in us (and in hopes of a further tip), walked with 
us, and told us of the&tkings. Then we caught a car 
and came coasting down the mountain, around the 
curves and all, really exciting at times and hard to 
keep from swaying over against our companions. 
In the city we walked a way along the wonderful 
Avenida or wide street where there are fine shops. 
We walked and admired the fine things and smiled 
at the curious types of people (and they smiled at 
us, no doubt), and saw the curious fruits. We then 
came back to the wharf. The swell from yester- 
day's storm was terrific and some lads were having 
such a game. Back some way from the wharf there 
was a round hole in the stone pavement, like a coal 
hole in a sidewalk, and with an iron cover to it. 
This connected with the sea and now and then the 
waves would imprison and compress air in such a 
way that it would make a geyser there that would 
throw up the lid and a stream of water twelve feet 
high. The lads would watch their chance, hurried- 
ly pull the lid on again and then pile stones on it 
as fast as they could pile them, but sooner or later, 
' gee-wash!' and up would go the lid, stones and 
all, and a deluge of water all about. It was hard 
getting on the launch, as the boat rose and fell so, 



414 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

and I had a time with one of our passengers, who 
was cross and unhappy, weary and disappointed. 
The women were brave and we all got to the ship 
safely. ' ' 

Capt. Roberts and I soon learned that we were 
kindred spirits. Neither one of us was good for 
much at light talk with the women; we were both 
awkward, more or less, and far too serious to be 
good company with the light-hearted. Therefore, 
we used to get together and take interminable hard, 
swift walks on deck, one of us doing all the talk- 
ing always, the other only commenting or objecting. 
Now he would give me a lecture on Egyptology or 
I would tell him the history of the Mormon church. 
Poor old captain ; if his Egyptology is no more ac- 
curate than his present knowledge of Mormonism, 
there is not much hope from history. Curiously 
enough the captain could read the old Egyptian 
hieroglyphics like print. He was also an artist of 
distinction, but withal a sea captain who never 
neglected for an instant his great ship. The life 
of a sea captain makes a man strangely cynical ; 
he sees all sides of human nature, and not all of them 
are pleasant sides. Capt. Roberts is an American 
by birth. He told me what a long, weary way it 
was from New Zealand to Cape Horn, down in the 
twilight and the dismal cold. "I simply have to 
have something to study, Mr. Wing," was his ex- 
planation of his Egyptology. 

There were more interesting people, per- 
haps, forward in second cabin than in the first. 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 415 

There were New Zealand sheep farmers going 
"home" for visits, or because they had sold their 
lands and flocks and were going home for good ; 
there were artisans and artists, actresses and 
singers, and most interesting of them all, per- 
haps, a young man of good birth and Oxford 
training, Mr. Sedgewick. He is devoting some 
years of his life to helping the poor of London. 
He does it by forming in that town boys' clubs, 
where he gathers together the most worthy and 
helps them in various ways, ending by taking 
many of them to Australia and New Zealand, 
and putting them in good places on farms. Each 
boy is farmed out by himself, so that he may 
the sooner shed off certain unpleasant mannerisms 
of London and the sooner take on the newer and 
brighter optimistic outlook of the new civilization. 
These lads do finely in their new environment. 

Among the Ionic's passengers were a few Uru- 
guay men and women. I liked them. They were 
always kind, considerate and courteous. This could 
scarcely be said of some of the English-speaking 
people. What a pity it is that we allow the Latin 
people to excel us in courtesy, when we think that 
we excel them in some other things. 

We came steadily northeastward, passing the 
equator in great comfort. In fact, there was hard- 
ly an uncomfortable day. The sun is no such ter- 
rific monster in the tropics as I had supposed. When 
one is at sea, it is very comfortable indeed except 
during occasional hours of mist or humid weather, 



416 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

when, one becomes sticky with perspiration that 
does not evaporate. We passed only a few ships. 
Our wireless man got some fragments of news, a 
part of which he gave out and a part he concealed, 
with true British reticence. We neared Tenerife, 
one of the Canary Islands. I quote : 

THE PEAK OF TENERIFE. 

"July 25: Early this morning we came in sight 
of the peak of Tenerife; thereafter, it was difficult 
to stay in one's cabin and work. The peak is 12,- 
090 feet high and it was wreathed in fleecy clouds. 
The sides of the mountain are rather barren, but 
there are pine forests high up. Along the barren, 
cliff-walled coast the waves break hard. Up on lit- 
tle table lands and in the edges of great ravines or 
canyons, there are visible white-walled villages, very 
high upon the mountainside. It is a lovely sight. 
We can see white roads and houses with gleaming 
white walls, but as it is the dry season and it is a 
semi-arid land, we see no green trees or fields. It 
is a large island ; we were until one o 'clock coming 
along its shores before we made harbor and dropped 
our anchor to take on coal. 

"The Canary Islands are in the latitude of 
Southern Florida, and are as near to being a sunny 
paradise as one can find. Many English people 
come here to escape British winters. The islands 
produce tomatoes, bananas and other fruits for Lon- 
don. If these islands had only been settled by the 
right people. The original islanders were very 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 417 

dark, but not negroes; later came Spanish and 
Moorish folk. We went ashore soon after casting 
our anchor, finding the old town half asleep, for 
it was the time of the noonday siesta — probably a 
wise thing to observe if one is to live long in the trop- 
ics. The narrow streets struggled up the mountain- 
side a little way. In the quaint old houses were wood- 
en shutters, tight-closed, all but little squares in their 
centers, as large as a moderate-sized picture frame. 
These little squares were open and seiloras or 
senoritas in considerable negligee gazed out. In 
the market we bought figs, peaches, apricots and 
other fruits. In the cool patio of a hotel we had 
tea and gossiped with the passengers. Then with 
an athletic English girl I climbed clear up to the 
top of the town and out a little way into the sur- 
rounding barren fields, which were terraced. The 
view was magnificent down over the sleepy town, 
with its little green gardens and prized trees, the 
very blue water of the harbor and the sea beyond. 

"We found a marvelous tree — some sort of aca- 
cia covered with crimson bloom. We bribed a lad 
to climb and secure for us a pod with seeds, these 
for Tucoman. Then, laden with flowers, fruit and 
the treasured seeds, we came back, very happy, to 
the ship. In the clear, blue water of the harbor 
the lads of the place were diving for silver; they 
would not do it for copper coins. The sun blazed 
finely, just a fine corn day in the Ohio Valley, and 
a tiny field of maize near the town made me more 
homesick than I had yet been. The capital of the 



418 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

islands is a little city high up in the mountains, 
reached by an electric railway; in fact, here is a 
curious mingling of old and new. The city seems 
incredibly ancient, yet it is the terminus of a new 
network of electric lines that will develop the horti- 
cultural resources of the island. Incidentally, as is 
usual in the tropics, the place was lousy with beg- 
gars. Four more days of quiet steaming' ahead 
brought us to the English coast. Our excitement 
grew, ships and birds increased in numbers, the 
sea was alive now and populous. We beheld it all 
with mixed feelings of gladness and trouble, for 
soon the Philistines would be upon us, and we 
would need to take up the burden of the daily task, 
shunted off during the weeks afloat. Many of us 
decided to go ashore at Plymouth to save time." 

LANDING AT PLYMOUTH, ENGLAND. 

Coming into the harbor was a happy time ; we 
could see with our glasses the fields with grain in 
shock, with white sheep grazing, with cattle, and 
the dense forest on the hillsides, vividly green. But 
all the fields were parched and brown — something 
that I never before saw in England. The adieus 
were said, and we boarded the tender and went fly- 
ing in to the dock with tons and tons of mail and 
our baggage. Many passengers disembarked, and 
yet as we left the great ship it seemed black with 
people waving handkerchiefs to us, and as soon as 
we cast off, the ship started grimly on the last leg 
of her voyage to London. 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 419 

At Plymouth, customs regulations were easy; 
only one of my tilings was opened. It was hot 
weather and I was astonishingly weary, so at the 
hotel I lay down to rest. Later, I sallied out to ex- 
plore Plymouth; a tram car came along and I made 
a mess of it, trying to board it on the wrong side 
and then on the wrong end; the motorman courte- 
ously awaited me and as I crawled in said, "Take 
a seat here by me, sir." I did. "I have not learned 
your English trolleys yet," I remarked. "No, but 
you will very soon, sir, ' ' he courteously replied. So 
he told me of things as we rode by them and I ob- 
served how courteously he helped people on and off 
and waited for them to come when a little way off. 
At last we came to the brink of a little hill and 
started down it. "Are you afraid, sir?" "Oh, 
no, I am not afraid when you have hold of the 
wheel," I laughingly replied. "Well, sir, you need 
not fear; I will take care of us," he replied serious- 
ly. That was the end of his run; beyond began the 
pasture lands, and I went up to look at the good 
sheep cropping the sun-dried grass; then walked a 
mile or more in the suburbs seeing now a queer row 
of houses, or street with two rows, thrust up into a 
pasture, but fenced off with an unscalable iron 
fence and with signs "trespassers will be prose- 
cuted." The street was perfectly paved and fin- 
ished as though in the middle of a city. Unhap- 
pily, too often all the houses were alike, what they 
call "Jerry Builded," I believe. 

I saw charming red Devon cattle in a pasture 



420 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

right in the city, and a fine old country place, sur- 
rounded by the city and yet retaining acres of land, 
with its park and trees. I rode on a two-storied 
trolley, then came back to town and went to the 
old church. It was late, but I slipped in and found 
a choir boy at practice. How he did sing, that lad- 
die. I listened to him with joy. 

The church looked very old, though as a matter 
of fact it was a new church when the Mayflower 
sailed, as it was built, or rebuilt, in 1600. The orig- 
inal church was. of 1100 and something or other. 1 
found a doorway, though, in what must have been 
once a parish house and on the doorcap, of granite, 
was cut the date 1539. Then I strolled on up to a 
great promenade that they call "The Hoe," where 
thousands of folk were walking backward and for- 
ward, for what purpose I could not discover. There 
were many fine hotels thereabouts and these were no 
doubt largely summer people. The Hoe overlooks 
the lovely bay ; it was pretty quiet, so far as com- 
merce goes. 

Coming back, I strolled into the hotel sitting- 
room and to my astonishment there sat writing a 
very pretty girl, plainly of part negro blood. She 
proved to be the daughter of the landlady, and real- 
ly the daughter is the manageress of the place. She 
was English-born, only dusky enoughs to be fine 
looking, and with a beautiful voice and charming 
manners, evidently of good education, too, and alto- 
gether interesting from an American point of view. 
As first impressions are valuable, let me record 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 421 

mine. English common people in the mass seem 
singularly lacking in force of character or force of 
any sort. They seem very good-natured, kindly, 
industrious and respectable, but not very interest- 
ing, lacking physical vigor and virility. It always 
so impresses me. I wonder whether it is in part 
because they live behind closed windows. It was 
a hot afternoon and evening and yet I was aston- 
ished as I walked to see them nearly always behind 
tightly closed windows and doors, in their homes. 

THROUGH DEVONSHIRE. 

On a train in Devonshire, Monday, July 31, I 
wrote: "Just now we are passing through inde- 
scribably lovely scenes; I feel I must write of them. 
The little fields, all hedge-enclosed; the red-coated 
sheep in them, sometimes on the poorer hillsides, 
grazing among big ferns; the big red cows and the 
bits of deep, rich, dark forests, of beech and oak, 
with ferns beneath and gorse on the outskirts — all 
these things far too lovely for mere words. A val- 
ley of deep shadows leads off; hedges run up hill- 
sides green with gorse and heather; hillsides which 
at the head of the valley become so high that 
the clouds come down to meet them. Clouds hang 
very low. The ancient farmhouses of stone with 
their gay little flower gardens and their few mossy 
old apple trees and their prim patches of potatoes 
are captivating. Here is a narrow, sweet, country 
lane; red cows, driven by a boy are passing. It is 
all so good and so lovely that it warms my heart 



422 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

and makes me long to make Woodland Farm even 
more lovely than it now is. See the rye in prim, 
old-maiden shocks, the center of the field yet uncut. 
I have all the compartment to myself; the others 
go first-class or second-class; I am in third. One 
of my friends is in the first-class, in the same car 
as mine. I examined with interest his compart- 
ment; the sole difference that I can see is that there 
is a sort of division between the seats. I love to be 
alone this morning. 

"The red cows look good to me. I think that 
when my laddies go to farming, we will have South 
Devon cattle for one thing. The naughty rooks in 
the grainfields ; the high earthen banks with hedges 
on their crests; the small blooming red clover, be- 
speaking drouth (now happily broken) ; the nicely 
thatched ricks of hay, small, but doubtless of per- 
fect quality; the great draught mares and foals at 
pasture — these things interest me. It is as though 
I had died and was come to life again. Oh, what's 
the use writing! No one who has not been in exile 
for a long time can understand what it all means. 
Now we are in a nice, cool, damp tunnel, with a fine, 
earthy odor and no smoke; there is an orchard of 
cider apples with sheep lying in its shade. I see 
now a hillside covered with bracken. ' ' 

NOTES FROM ENGLAND'S SUNNY ISLE. 

Two previous years I had seen England. The 
island was a picture in greens, a damp, cool, moist, 
dripping island, a land where one wore winter flan- 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 423 

nels all summer and rejoiced in a fire at evening. I 
learned, though, that there is but one thing cer- 
tain about weather : it will never again be as it was 
yesterday. Now it was as hot and dry as is Kansas. 

I met in London my old friend A. J. Hickman. 
"Come down with me to a sale of Hackneys at Rei- 
gate this afternoon," he said, "They are some of 
R. P. Evans' at Wood Hatch, very famous horses; 
the train goes at 12:50." "I can not go that soon, 
I fear," I replied. "I should be glad to go if I 
could, and possibly I can get ready." "Well, meet 
me at Charing Cross at 12:50 if you can; if not, 
come down to my place by the 4:30," was his reply. 

I rushed around, using taxicabs, and made the 
12 :50 train all right, but at the train did not see 
Mr. Hickman. At Reigate I alighted alone from 
the train; evidently, he had missed it. However, I 
went on to the sale. Reigate is a very picturesque 
village, old and new. Wood Hatch is a fine farm 
indeed with glorious Hackneys selling. There was 
a small crowd of buyers, but they were good buy- 
ers. One horse sold for 800 guineas, and others 
as low as 200. After admiring the horses and the 
environment for a time, I set out again for the sta- 
tion, for I was a bit uneasy about getting on to 
Pluckley on the same train as Mr. Hickman. At 
the village, I dropped in at an inn for a glass of 
ginger ale. That sin cost me dear. As I sipped 
the ale, Mr. Hickman passed, on his way to the 
sale. I went to the station and secured a ticket to 
Plucklev via Tunbridge. I had made a careful note 



424 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

in London that such would be Mr. Hickman's pro 
gramme, so it was evident that it should be mine. 

What happened afterward I could not explain 
without diagrams. No one at the station seemed 
at all sure what I was to do to reach Pluckley, but 
they put me aboard a train headed toward London, 
which was quite proper, but they did not tell me to 
change at Red Hill, and I proceded northward. 
After a time, forebodings of evil seized me and I 
diligently studied a diagram on the wall of the com- 
partment. When at last I found the village amid 
the maze of other villages and network of lines 
I was aghast; I had gone much too far. I alighted, 
at the suggestion of a passing porter, at a pretty 
station in Surrey, but its beauty was quite lost on 
me. I asked the stationmaster what I should do; 
he pondered the situation for a long time and looked 
up his schedules. "I am not quite clear, sir, as 
Pluckley is beyond our schedules, but I advise you 
to take the 4 :50. ' ' I took it and scudded back down 
the line, getting off at a place that he had suggested. 
There they were cheery and advised me to try a 
train that would leave in a few minutes on another 
branch. I do not remember where that train went. 
A bricklayer who got in my compartment com- 
forted me. He was bound for Dover and clearly 
Dover was out past Pluckley. We were both turned 
out midway and waited anxiously' for another train, 
on another branch I assume. Meanwhile, long 
trains whizzed by laden with happy mortals, booked 
to some safe and sure conclusion, not like me 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 



425 





OAT FIELD IN KENT— FOLLOWING SHEEP. 




THE HICKMAN FARM IN KENT. 



426 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

plucked in such an untimely way from my voyage 
to Pluckley. I envied those people; they knew 
England; they spoke and understood the English 
language, which I had forgotten in my four years 
of absence. The guards and porters, for instance, 
spoke often in a strange tongue that I could not 
comprehend. At last I boarded another train, as- 
sured by all that this one would deposit me at Pluck- 
ley, and it did. My journey was in shape like the 
lightning flashes seen on a hot midsummer night 
in the cornbelt, but I was there, at last. Away 
back I had sent by telegraph an imploring and fran- 
tic appeal to Mr. Hickman, to rescue me from the 
perils of English travel by land, and soon after I 
set foot on the soil of Pluckley, Mr. Hickman's 
pony cart and groom came driving up and I was 
saved. There was another reason for profound 
thankfulness. All of that long afternoon's riding 
to and fro had been free; no one had asked to see 
my ticket in all that time; I had paid one fare and 
ridden 325 miles, more or less. 

I wonder now why any one buys a railway ticket 
in England? Come to think of it, they did ask me 
for it at Pluckley. Are they mind-readers? 

Sitting at a good supper with my genial host 
and smiling hostess soon after I exclaimed, "Mr. 
Hickman, how far in goodness' name are you from 
London?" 

"Just forty-eight miles," was his smiling reply. 
"A little more than an hour's ride." And there is 
no change of cars, if you get on the right train. 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 427 

Well, there is a lot in knowing how to do a thing, 
and I hope I have learned to ask questions by this 
time. 

At Court Lodge I tramped over the farm. It is 
in Kent. The upper fields are on high, breezy pla- 
teaus, whence one looks down across glorious vistas 
of valley, woodland and farmstead, over fields of 
ripening wheat and barley, over flocks of Romney 
sheep and little herds of red cows. We tramped 
after the binders cutting the wheat. They were 
American binders made for England with short 
cutter bars, for the grain was thick and heavy, 
drawn by great, strong, Shire mares. About some 
of the fields a man was cutting away with his cra- 
dle, his wife binding the sheaves after him. Wo- 
men cut the broad beans and laid them in little 
heaps on the ground. Children came along the foot- 
paths through the nodding grain, bearing armful s 
of flowers for a flower show down by Edgerton 
church. Their mothers followed, all in their holi- 
day attire. There were 800 Romneys on the up- 
land farm of 400 acres. They were mostly on the 
yellow burned pastures, for the drouth had been 
severe; they were fat, though, as Romneys are 
wont to be, with half a chance. The cattle were 
mostly milking Short-horns. I marveled at them 
and marveled the more that men so strictly let them 
alone in America. 

Down in the village, below the church, was a 
little green and there was a tent pitched. In the 
tent were tables and on the tables all manner of 



428 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

vegetable products of the laborers' gardens, and of 
other gardens as well, and flowers. There were 
many prizes given, for there were many classes, so 
that the gardener at the gentleman's place does not 
compete against the laborers. The children, too, 
had prizes for their work and for bouquets of wild 
flowers that they had gathered. The prizes were 
not large — from $1.25 to $2.50 or thereabouts, but 
they were none the less valued because much honor 
is attached to winning them. To me the big goose- 
berries were most interesting; there were even 
tomatoes and melons from under glass. 

There were sports on the green, with music and 
all sorts of sweets and light refreshments. The 
best of the show to me was the sight of the fresh- 
complexioned people, young and old, in holiday at- 
tire, the girls in white. How innocent, how kindly^ 
how good it all was. One old bent man, with a 
strong face and lines that denoted years of willing 
toil was with his wife, who was older and more bent. 
They leaned heavily on their canes, and asked in 
merry tones "When will the dancing begin?" He, I 
learned, drew an old age pension and in addition 
was yet able to break stone on the highway. 

All this is humble, but perhaps worth describ- 
ing; it is from such sources as this that come the 
beauty and orderliness of old England. The cot- 
tager or the laborer, hoeing in his garden, training 
up his roses and his gooseberries, is a better man 
and citizen than if he were to be loafing around 
some ale house. The money for the prizes, by the 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 429 

way, was contributed by the farmers and others 
who in the community can afford to give. 

AN ENGLISH RURAL COMMUNITY. 

I am always struck in an English rural commu- 
nity with the thought that the farm laborers are not 
so big and rugged a class as they ought to be ; this 
is noticeable in Kent. They are not at all bold, 
brawny men. What is the reason? Is it that the 
stronger and more courageous sons go into the 
army or navy or emigrate to foreign lands, leaving 
behind the fearful,, the impotent? 

I quote from my journal: 

''I am learning the most astonishing things 
about land values in Kent, and about taxation and 
other matters. Taxation is an intricate affair. 
There are 'tithes,' which are taxes on the land, 
and date from the time when the church owned all 
the land. Tithes go to the church. Then there are 
'rates,' which are taxes levied for the ordinary 
purposes of the parish, and there also are taxes 
levied on the buildings on a farm and on the carts, 
wagons and carriages. Moreover, there are other 
special taxes, so that one finds it a complicated mat- 
ter. The landlord pays most of the land tax; this 
may amount to as much as $2.50 per acre; usually 
it is less. As he rents the land for about $5 per 
acre, he does not get very much out of it, as he 
must also keep the buildings in repair and occa- 
sionally erect new ones. 

"This must be the reason why one can buy in 



430 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

Kent a fine farm for $75 per acre, or even a good 
farm for $50, of as good a quality of land as would 
cost double that sum in Indiana or Ohio. It is yet 
quite a mystery to me. I am not at all sure that the 
British farmer has not the best of it when it comes 
to chances for money-making. His labor costs him 
much less than ours in America, as very good men 
work faithfully for less than $4 per week with a 
cottage furnished, a garden and perhaps fuel. 
With Mr. Hickman I drove to see a farmer born 
and bred in New Zealand. He had come to Eng- 
land to take up sheep-farming, much as I should 
like to do. He had sold his sheep run in New Zea- 
land for $35 per acre and bought 340 acres of land 
that he says has as great a carrying capacity for 
$50 per acre. I asked him what he found the most 
difficult problem in the new environment compared 
with New Zealand. To my astonishment, he replied 
that it was the labor. He said that if he set a man 
to do anything he must have a second man to at- 
tend him and perhaps a boy to attend the second 
man. In New Zealand laboring men have the self- 
reliance that is bred in men in all new countries, 
where men must "go it alone" or not go. How- 
ever, our New Zealand friend felt sure that oppor- 
tunities for money-making were better in Kent than 
in New Zealand, because being at the threshold of 
great markets, prices for fat lambs were about 
double what they were in his old land. It was in- 
teresting to see that this New Zealander had taken 
away a lot of fences and walls, and made about 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 431 

bis house a sort of wide lawn, all open to the high- 
way, much as we do in America. He had thrown 
the little fields into large enclosures and was busy 
grubbing out ancient hedgerows and removing pre- 
historic bushes and other landmarks. Perhaps it 
is well for the picturesqueness of Kent that few 
"colonials" return to uproot old traditionary prac- 
tices and ways. Mr. Hickman did not approve of 
this ; it looked so strange to him, although he ad- 
mitted that it looked well, but he liked the privacy 
that the wall gave. After all, this man was more 
like an Englishman than an American in manner, 
although he had the American way of doing things, 
and that comes from, his having had to attack prob- 
lems similar to ours and solve them in a similar 
manner. 

THE PRACTICE OF CHALKING LAND. 

Yesterday we went to see a rich and lovely 
farm situated in a valley, but running up on a hill 
at one side. There were great crops of wheat and 
oats in shock, heavier than we grow in America, 
and fine Romney sheep in pasture. The great 
square house had been once rather fine, and it had 
a pleasant garden and an orchard. The place lay 
on a main highway to London, a splendid road over 
which dashed at least 500 automobiles daily, which 
is no great advantage to the farm, one would think. 
This farm I was told could be bought for $70 per 
acre. It is indeed a temptation to go to Kent, if 
one wishes to raise sheep. Think of the abundant 



432 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

and faithful labor and the ease with which one can 
have maids in the house and all that. On this farm 
was a great scar on the hillside, whence had in 
days past been taken thousands of cartloads of 
chalk. This material sweetened the land and thus 
made clovers to grow. The beginning of this prac- 
tice may have been a thousand years ago.- No^v 
the chalk is no more used and the land begins to 
need it again. The advent of commercial fertilizers, 
they told me, had superseded the use of chalk, and 
"dearer labor" had made it expensive to get it 
. out. 

Kent is a beautiful, fertile, finished and livable 
land, if there is one anywhere in the world. Driv- 
ing with Mr. Hickman, we passed a wee hamlet, 
composed nearly altogether of laborers' cottages. 
A deep trench beside the road attracted my atten- 
tion. Mr. Hickman told me that it was for the new 
sewers that were being laid; that there was in 
each parish an inspector of sanitation, and when 
he found need, he ordered both sewers and water 
works laid down, even if it may be in so humble a 
hamlet as this. The cost was in part assessed on 
the land-owner and in part on the parish. Thus, 
although the laborer had not a large sum to spend, 
a large amount was spent for him in giving him a 
sanitary living place, and in giving him a more 
perfect road on which to walk, than has many an 
American city. 

On the whole the English agricultural laborer 
lias as happy a time as his American cousin. He 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 433 

is an opportunist, in the kindly sense of the word; 
he makes the most of the present, spades his gar- 
den, grows his vegetables and flowers, competes 
for prizes at the parish flower show, glories in his 
success with pansies or mangel-wurzels and works 
faithfully, but his worst enemy never charged him 
with overworking. He goes to church and believes 
solemnly in heaven and hell, marries and rears a 
large family somehow or other on his $4 per week. 
His wife helps all she can by doing piece work, 
thinning turnips or binding grain. The man grows 
old at last; there is, however, always some old man's 
job to be done until he is quite beyond that; then 
he goes to live with a married son or daughter — 
rarely, I think very rarely, in this part of the King- 
dom to the parish workhouse to end his days. He 
can not earn enough ever to rise from being a 
laborer. Perhaps, therefore, he is happier because 
it relieves him of strenuous ambitions and the un- 
happiness that follow these, be they fulfilled or un- 
fulfilled. 

FERTILE FIELDS IN KENT. 

In Kent, some of the fields remain marvelously 
fertile after long use. Once nearly all the land 
was in hops; now hops are grown more cheaply 
in Oregon and Washington, so many old hop-kilns 
are used for other things. I saw oats that made 90 
bushels to the acre. The people conserve manures, 
but they do not do this more faithfully than some 
American farmers today. They use fertilizers more 



434 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

freely, though, and rotate their fields with care. 
Clovers come often in the rotation and alfalfa oc- 
casionally. Alfalfa grows well in many Kentish 
soils. All these old countries seem, however, full 
of bad weeds, as quack grass, Canada thistles and 
docks. Women cut the thistles, while men by hoe- 
ing turnips eradicate the quack grass fairly well. 
I am told that many tenant-farmers are so in debt 
that they can never repay their landlords, and yet 
they are not turned out of the farms where they 
have lived many years — perhaps all their lives. Con- 
fidentially, I feel sure that this condition arises from 
the fact that the farmers do not look intelligently 
and energetically after their affairs. With fat 
lambs selling at from $7.50 to $10 each, as has been 
current here, and other things (except grain) more 
or less in proportion, it would seem that farming 
should pay well. 

I observed the most puzzling attitude toward the 
soil. Farmers argue with me that they do not care 
to own their land; that it does not pay to tie up 
capital ; that the thing to do is to rent land and 
put the capital into working it. Mr. Hickman thinks 
that one ought to have at least $40 per acre as work- 
ing capital before one attempts to farm. I feel 
sure that we try in America to work with far too 
little financial capital. Were I in England, how- 
ever, I could not escape buying land ; the American 
instinct sets strongly towards land-ownership. I 
learn that there are many farms for sale in Kent. 

Early one Sunday morning I went into the clov- 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 435 

er meadows, where with sharp scythes the men 
were cutting enough clover for the work horses. 
I enjoyed helping them, for the scythe was sharp; 
then, after chatting pleasantly with them for a time, 
I went back to the house. On the hill a little way 
off was the old church, with a great tower, whence 
I think perhaps watchmen once espied to see if the 
French were coming. The chimes rang in the old 
tower. After listening a little while, I went to see 
the ringing, but reached there too late. Not long- 
afterward, however, they rang again, and I ran to 
see the deed performed. I climbed the narrow, wind- 
ing stone stairs up into the old tower, where there 
were six men, each one grimly grasping a rope and 
looking with intentness at a board in front of him on 
which were chalked the directions for making the 
music. One by one, they swung their big bells ; the 
stirring chimes, sadly sweet, swept out and over 
all the land. They curiously affected me ; it was as 
a call from the best of the old past to the new and 
restless present and the uncertain future — a sort of 
pleading that we heed the spiritual things, recall 
our most precious memories and not forget. Several 
times were played; it was hard work. The ringers 
were brawny men ; in full action they were in shirt 
sleeves and Sunday clothes. I was interested to 
know that they play several times each week; that 
they never expect or receive pay for this service. As 
a service of the true sort is its own reward, I think 
they come out all right, but where in America 
could we find a counterpart of this? I went then 



436 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

to church. There was an interesting boy choir, but 
neither vestment nor processional. Mr. Hickman 
told me that would be considered too "high church" 
for this parish. 

A VILLAGE INN. 

The village or country inn is a characteristic 
thing of southern England. Inns are not usually 
hotels and do not always, in fact, serve food; but 
they are drinking places where ales and beers are 
sold, and more ardent spirits when desired. It is 
astonishing what a number of inns one finds through- 
out the thickly-peopled country-side, and they all 
seem to do a good business. Once I stepped off a 
train in Kent, just at nightfall, having had a hard 
and trying day, with little chance for food. A beau- 
tiful and picturesque old inn stood near, ivy-cov- 
ered and neatly kept. With joy I made to it and 
asked for supper. The landlord seemed puzzled. 
"See here, now, it is late like; the missus has gone 
out; we have had our supper and there is nothing 
in the house to eat." I pleaded that if there was 
a loaf of bread and a scrap of bacon they would 
make a feast. He assented; he had them in store. 
Then he called to a passing lassie, daughter of a 
neighbor, who cheerfully consented to come in and 
cook the bacon. The man could not leave his bar. 
The bar-room was well filled, mostly with farm 
laborers, who were a quiet, orderly lot, none of 
them drinking too much. One might think it all well 
if one did not reflect that there would go sixpence 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 437 

of each man's $4 weekly wage. The drink habit 
in England consumes an incredible sum of the earn- 
ings of labor. 

The way the country people manage to get on 
is for all of the family to work, so far as possible. 
The wife will go out and cut thistles or beans. For 
this labor she receives about 40 cents a day. It 
helps out the earnings of her husband and seems 
to do the woman no harm. They dress respectably 
and wear strong shoes that last a long time. 

What impresses an American is the great num- 
ber and variety of buildings on an English farm. 
There is, first of all, the dwelling of the farmer; 
the house at Court Lodge is rather large, well 
built and would cost in America about $7,000 to 
construct. Surrounding the master's residence is 
a company of lesser buildings, for his private driv- 
ing and saddle horses, for the fowls, the dogs, 
pigeons and the gardener's tools, and then about 
ten or twelve small structures the original use of 
which has perhaps been forgotten. There are the 
large barns in which are stored grains and some 
hay, although hay is usually built in stacks, and 
the barns are never so great in capacity as one sees 
in eastern America. Then there are hop-kilns, now 
unused, and byres where cows are kept, sheds for 
show rams and sheep, and granaries. All of these 
structures are solidly built of brick or stone and 
roofed usually with red tiles and kept in repair at 
the expense of the landlord. 

There are twelve cottages at Court Lodge in 



438 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

which the laborers of the farm live. It once had 
a larger population than it has today, and fewer 
sheep. That was when hops were grown and 
grain was cradled by hand, or, more likely, cut 
with picturesque reaping hooks. Now the farm 
carries many Romney sheep, sometimes as many as 
800, with Short-horn cows of the milking type, and 
of course big Shire horses. Mr. Hickman was 
troubled because of the failure of his turnip crop. 
Here the Swede turnip is a great reliance for win- 
ter feeding of sheep. Mangels are grown also for 
cattle. The year was one of terrific heat and drouth, 
rather worse than one sees even in the cornbelt of 
America, and it seemed impossible that the roots 
could come to anything. 

PROFITS FROM FARMING IN KENT. 

Mr. Hickman was very kind in giving me freely 
access to his books and accounts. I know more of 
his business affairs than he himself knew before. 
Suffice to say that I conclude that the farmer in 
Kent, because of his good markets, his fertile soil, 
his usually genial climate and his abundance of re- 
liable and fairly efficient labor, is in a much bet- 
ter position to make money than is the American 
farmer facing a severer climate, a soil no more 
fertile and usually less so, a deficiency of labor, 
and markets very much inferior, as a rule, to those 
of England. I judged that my host was making 
money and I was glad. He is a stirring man, and 
goes about over the farm giving close personal di- 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 439 

rection to every detail of the work — much closer 
attention, I think, than is customary among British 
farmers. He does not, however, take hold to do 
things with his own hands, as would a farmer in 
Ohio or Illinois ; that is not necessary with labor 
in such good supply. 

We went one day to visit the father, a rugged 
old man of tremendous vitality and force of char- 
acter. He had been among the greatest sheep- 
owners of England, having had at one time as many 
as 8,000 Eomney sheep and having still a great 
number. These he kept on Eomney Marsh during 
most of the year; in fact, a lot of them never left 
the marsh until they came away fat. Only in winter 
the lambs come to the farms to be fed; their 
mothers remained on the bleak marsh. We went 
down on to the marsh to look at the sheep there. 
The marsh was once in part below the level of the 
sea, and I think that the high tides would still cov- 
er it if it were not protected by dykes. It is inter- 
sected with canals that drain it, and is nearly all 
in pasture. There are few trees ; it is very wide, 
level, green and grassy. It is not now a wet coun- 
try, for the canals drain it as dry as any part of 
Illinois ; but men do not farm the land because it 
pays better to graze it and because they learn that, 
once plowed, the land does not again soon set to 
so good a grass as is native there. 

My chief memory of the marsh is of the old, 
faithful shepherd who had charge of Mr. Hickman's 
hundreds of sheep. He knew the conditions of 



440 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

every pasture and of each lot of sheep — whether 
there was a lame one or a sick one anywhere. The 
marsh carries a heavy stocking of sheep, as many 
as ten or even twenty to the acre, when the season 
is good, for the soil is exceedingly rich. For some 
reason no other breed thrives so well as Romneys 
on the marsh. They have the ability to withstand 
the cold and wet and short pickings of winter, and 
to make quick recovery and get fat when the good 
grass of summer comes. 

We went also to a market at Ashford, where 
we saw hundreds of small pens filled with sheep 
or lambs ; some were fat for the butchers and some 
were in store condition only and needing to go to 
grass. The sheep are sold by auction one at a time. 
As the drouth had been severe and feed was scarce, 
the prices realized for the sheep were much lower 
than normal. Lambs sold as low as $3.00 to $7.50 
each and sheep at prices ranging from $6 to $15 
each. These prices, however, do not represent a 
normal season, when prices on the average would 
be considerably higher. 

The wool market at Ashford is worth studying. 
There is none of that custom of lumping all the wools 
of a county together and paying the same price to 
each man, as is seen commonly in the United States. 
The farmers bring their wools in to be sold at auc- 
tion, according to its quality and value. Thus the 
man who breeds good wool and presents it in good 
condition gets the benefit of his care in solid pounds, 
shillings and pence. 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 441 

THE KEW GARDENS IN LONDON. 

August 7 was bank holiday in London. 1 im- 
proved it by going to Kew Gardens — a most in- 
teresting place to me, because there one sees so 
many trees from all parts of the world. Although 
I had been twice before to Kew, I saw on this oc- 
casion a new sight, for the place is so large that 
one does not find it all at one time. With con- 
summate art, they have made a long, winding la- 
goon or bayou, and along its shores planted among 
other things, some American cypress trees (Tax- 
odium distichum.)' These have grown beautifully 
and the hot summer favored them. They were as- 
piring towers of green. I did not suppose that this, 
the finest of American trees, would thrive in so 
northern a latitude. 

In my London hotel two men sat down at a 
table with me and we exchanged pleasant greet- 
ings. "Is this what you call London weather?" 
asked one. 

"Well, no; we do not usually have it so hot as 
this," I replied. Then I asked; "Are you gentlemen 
newly come to London?" 

"Yes, we are just landed from Canada; this is 
our first day in London." 

"I am much interested," I exclaimed. "Tell me 
about Canada. It must be a wonderful country." 

They told me of the glories of Canada, and 
I asked them also about the United States and reci- 
procity, which was then under consideration. They 
were strenuously opposed to reciprocity because 



442 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

they thought it would result in Canadians doing most 
of their buying in the United States. "We are loyal 
to the Mother Country," they declared. "We wish 
to see a closer relation between our country and 
yours." As they assumed me to be an English- 
man I merely nodded. "We wish to thwart reci- 
procity and foster trade relations between England 
and Canada. In fact, our mission here is to see 
what we can do to help bring about the preferen- 
tial tariff duties. It seems to me you ought here 
in England to impose duties on Yankee grain and 
meats, while continuing to let in free ours and those 
from your other colonies. Then we would lower our 
duties on your manufactured goods and shut out 
the Yankee goods, and we would draw together. 
The trouble with our people is that the Yankees 
make things that look so good and sell them so 
cheap that our people will buy them, in spite of all 
that we can do; whereas the Yankee manufactures 
are not nearly so good as yours." "Of course they 
are not," I assented. 

What a fine argument that was for the reciprocity 
treaty of President Taft. Nothing could have done 
more to unite the two American nations ; nothing 
would have more benefited each country. However, 
from a British viewpoint, I marvel that they do not 
at once go in for the preferential tariff, giving the 
favors to their own colonies. 

England was all in a fever of unrest. Men 
cried "hard times," and perhaps there were hard 
times. Assuredly there were the usual slums filled 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BS JOS. E. WING 443 

\ 

with the unemployables, but the country as a whole 
looked to an American, very prosperous. There 
was an outcry by one party for a protective tariff. 
"Why should we buy cheap things of Germany?" 
was asked. But the effort to inaugurate even in 
small degree a policy of protective duties is met 
with fierce and unrelenting opposition. It seems 
hardly possible that tariff duties on foodstuffs will 
ever again be tolerated in England, because the 
labor vote and even the vote of the middle classes, 
farmers excepted, would probably be against that 
policy. They admit free of duty Argentine, Austral- 
ian and New Zealand meats, but they discriminate 
against them in buying as much as they can, giving 
the preference to their home-grown mutton and 
beef and paying much higher prices for English beef 
and mutton. 

I had a letter of introduction to a farmer in the 
lowlands of Scotland, William Henderson of Perth- 
shire. My duties done in Kent and London, I ask- 
ed my hotel porter to see to having reserved for me 
a sleeping car ticket to Coupar Angus in Perth- 
shire, and went about various errands in the city 
with a light heart, sure of a fine night's rest, as 
the train sped northward. As I paid my bill and 
tipped the hotel servants preparatory to taking my 
departure for the station, my porter surprised me 
by saying, "Pardon me, sir, but I did not reserve 
for you that sleeping car berth." 

"No; and why did you not?" 

"Because, sir, it would cost so much that I 



444 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

thought you would not wish it, ' ' was his reply. Then 
he told me that in order to ride in a sleeping car 
I must have first a first-class ticket and then the 
berth, making an extra charge for the night of about 
$9.50. I hurried to the station and sought there to 
buy the berth ; but I was too late. Travel north 
was heavy and all berths were sold. "I do not think 
you will mind, sir," said the attentive railway por- 
ter. "I will try to get you in a compartment that 
is not crowded." I had my rug and hired a pillow. 
We were pretty closely crowded in until we had 
passed Rugby. 

ENGLISH RAILWAY TRAVEL. 

English railway seats are dreadfully uncomfort- 
able things in which to sit; the backs are straight 
and there is nothing against which to put one's 
feet. Finally the crowd thinned out; there remain- 
ed only a young man, a young woman with her baby 
and myself. I slept a long time, awakening to see 
the young mother yet sitting bolt upright holding 
her baby clasped in her arms. I insisted that she 
should lie down and use my pillow and rug, which 
at last she consented to do. I do not remember the 
station at which she wished to alight, but at dawn 
she seemed troubled. "The way was never so long 
before, sir," she said. Then at Stirling I made in- 
quiries and learned that she should have alighted 
three hours before. She was aghast and frightened, 
but hastily alighted. I was furious. We had paid 
a penny a mile, the usual rate of first-class travel in 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 445 

our own land, yet we were denied sleeping car priv- 
ileges and, to cap the climax the management was 
so inefficient that in a corridor train it did not take 
the trouble to send a man through to look at the 
tickets and tell people where they should get off. 
But all English railways are not so badly managed 
as this one ; on some lines they now have the Ameri- 
can system of tickets and conductors. 

To finish the tale of the British managed rail- 
way, I changed cars once or twice and at last alight- 
ed at my destination. No one was astir about 
the station; no one since I had purchased it had 
looked at my ticket. In disgust I refused to search 
for any official to now receive it and walked away 
with that useless bit of pasteboard in my pocket, as 
I imagine many others do under such a system. 
The fact is that travel in the United States 
rather spoils one for railway travel in other lands. 
There are in England, however, splendid roadbeds, 
and splendid swift trains run on them. They are 
equipped with modern corridor compartment cars, 
which are very comfortable indeed, and on the bet- 
ter managed roads they have attendants who go 
through the train to collect tickets and to inform 
the passenger when he has arrived at his destina- 
tion. Travel is nowhere else so cheap, however, 
all things considered, as in the United States. 

Well, the nightmare of a night was over at last, 
and a glorious morning had succeeded. The dry, 
hot summer was drawing to a close and while Eng- 
land was well browned and burned by the heat 



446 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

and drouth, Scotland was deliciously green in its 
grass lands. Its wheatfields were golden; its oats 
had a soft, creamy yellow tinge, and its fields of 
potatoes were richly green. Then there were the 
forests deeply, richly green, and back of all loomed 
up the mountains, the heather-clad mountains, in 
bloom in great patches of purple, acres in extent. 

In Kent I had left picturesque little fields of ir- 
regular shapes, surrounded by hedges and often with 
trees along the borders ; picturesque, certainly, yet 
they were rather difficult to farm, one would say. 
Here I had come, to fields, almost American, large, 
square, divided often by fences, sometimes by stone 
walls, neat, tidy, pictures of agricultural thrift and 
orderliness. There were other notable differences. 
In Kent the villages were most picturesque; the 
cottages were draped with ivies, with flower gar- 
dens in front. Here the village cottages were of 
square stone, solid, everlasting, rather grim, with 
no ivies and usually with no flowers. I could not 
but think that the difference typified somewhat the 
differences in the English and the Scottish types 
of mind, the English loving a bit of pleasure, a bit 
of beauty, and the Scottish serious, building well 
and strong, fearing vanities, maybe, or thinking it 
a waste to spend time on mere adornments. How- 
ever, there were also points of resemblance; the 
roads of Kent and of Perthshire were near perfect 
and evidently had been thoroughly well looked after, 
in contrast with our roads in America. 

My destination was the farm of William Hen- 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 



447 




LABORERS" COTTAGES AT LA WTO N— SCOTLAND. 




SHROPSHIRES AT TOM BUTTAR'S. 



448 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

derson, of Lawton, at Coupar Angus. I found that 
Mr. Henderson was at Edinboro, but his sister re- 
ceived me with that warm Scottish hospitality that 
makes rightly-directed travel so delightful over 
there. The brother would be at home in the even- 
ing; would I not content myself in her care in the 
meantime? Indeed I would. 

The old Lawton farmhouse is stone-built, with 
floors of stone and quaint passages and comfortable 
and home-like rooms. There was a dear old white- 
capped mother, and soon after my arrival she took 
me out to the garden to see the flowers, the won- 
drous sweet peas, millions of them, in long rows, 
the pansies and poppies, the American g r olden rod, 
and many things that I can not take the time to 
set down. In the large garden were strawberries, 
raspberries and gooseberries — such gooseberries as 
no one in America ever saw or dreamed of. The 
bushes fairly drooped to the earth with their bur- 
dens of fruit. In the great lawn in front stood 
big trees of California, which were once much plant- 
ed in Great Britain, growing splendidly, and also 
enormous lindens. In the enclosure was a mound, 
for all the world like the mounds one sees in Am- 
erica made by our " mound builders," this mound 
was crowned by a huge tree. It is interesting to 
think that some day many ages ago there may have 
lived in Scotland men who made these earthen mon- 
uments or possibly temples, and that their ideas 
seemed so much like the men who dwelt in the corn 
belt of America. 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 449 

A BRITISH STOCK FARM. 

We drove over to Carston to see Thomas But- 
tar and his Shropshires. The way lay through in 
teresting fields, rich with grain, being harvested 
with self-binders made at Blairgowrie. We passed 
great Clydesdales, hitched tandem, and drawing 
carts of hay or earth. The horses were fat and 
fine and evidently well bred. I asked one of the 
farmers why they did not hitch them side by side, 
as we do in America. He replied that it would 
not do at all; that their way was much better. What 
a curious thing is this world, with its habits and 
prejudices. And how do I know that our own way 
is best? But 'imagine our trying to get our laborers 
to drive our horses tandem. It impresses me though 
that in Scotland horses are not worked at all hard; 
that the bulk of them is almost ridiculously more 
than adequate to move the weights behind them. 
In America the burden is always greater, for wagon 
and horse and for man who labors; yes, and for 
housewife too; we all work up to the limit of our 
strength, while these wiser Scots leave always a 
comfortable margin for safety. Be that as it may, 
it is certain that the man who "does not like the 
Clydesdale horse" in America would be impressed 
if he should see them here, in their best estate. We 
must have made some early importations of a bad 
type of leggy, wasp-waisted Clydesdales ; they breed 
them very different from that type now. 

Mr. Buttar has a lovely old home in a perfect 
setting of green, and back of it are great stone 



450 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

farmsteads. We found him in his working clothes, 
busily dipping his lambs to prevent attacks of 
blow flies. He had no ticks, lice or scab. He finds 
that dipping repels the flies, which seem more trou- 
blesome in Scotland than America. That is curious, 
for the house fly is so uncommon that I saw no 
houses provided with screens in the windows. 

Mr. Buttar's lambs were beauties. They were 
not large because of the drouth, but were healthy 
and perfect. There seems, by the way, to be in Scot- 
land little if any trouble from internal parasites; 
the climate is a bit too cool for the development of 
the stomach worm. The manner of dipping sheep 
in Scotland is unlike ours in America, and I am not 
sure that their way is not, the better one. The dip- 
ping vats are not deep ; they have twenty-four in- 
ches or a little more of liquid in them. The lambs 
are gently turned in on their backs and after a 
brief instant of lying in that posture are turned over 
and allowed to emerge to the draining pen. Two 
men can turn them into the dip about as rapidly 
as our men put them in the deep plunges. The Scot- 
tish and English method at least has the merit of 
gentle handling. 

Mr. Buttar desisted long enough to show me his 
sheep, talking with me about breeds and type and 
systems of breeding. He is a strong believer in 
line-breeding; in no other way can one get a lot of 
good ones ; in no other way can he secure uniform- 
ity. He has two types : one for Scotland, selling 
them rams for cross-breeding, and one for America, 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 451 

for ram breeders. The type he breeds for us is 
the very compact sheep, thick and level, with a won- 
derful head covering. The type sold for cross- 
breeding is rather bigger, with not so much head 
wool. Mr. Buttar says lie is sure that there -has 
been no Merino blood put into the Shropshires in 
the past forty years, if ever there was any. This is 
an interesting point, since many of our people think 
that the wool on heads and legs came from an in- 
fusion of Merino blood. One can believe Mr. But- 
tar. He says, moreover, that it was not especially 
his wish to breed for head covering, but that the 
judges by giving' so much attention to that point 
in the showring compelled the adoption of it by 
the breeder. He considers it rather a disadvantage 
to the sheep instead of an advantage. It does not 
mean more than at most a few ounces of additional 
wool. 

We looked, rather hastily, at his bonny Short- 
horns, too, for what visitor to a first-rate Scottish 
farm would wish to depart without seeing his cattle? 
As time pressed, we said "good bye," having re- 
ceived a happy impression at Mr. Buttar 's. The 
fine, strong, happy personality of the man, the 
beautiful type of his sheep, the comfort of their 
environment and the beauty of his garden and 
grounds all conspired to make one wish that Mr. 
Buttar would move, bag and baggage, to the United 
States. 

The Shropshire, by the way, is not at all a com- 
mon sheep in Scotland. Nor is it in England, for 



452 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

that matter. It is the fancier's sheep, the sheep of 
export to the United States and to some extent to 
other regions. 

CROPS ON A SCOTCH FARM. 

We drove back to Lawton, Mr. Henderson's farm. 
Every farm of any note in Scotland and England 
has its name, well known and recognized. Law- 
ton lies close to the mountains, only one or two 
farms lying between; a great sheep pasture on one 
of the mountains is rented by Mr. Henderson. His 
is a productive farm and carefully managed. His 
land is a loam, mellow and easily tilled but some- 
what lacking in lime. Once in every rotation, there- 
fore, he applies fresh-burned ground lime, about 
half a ton to the acre. His system of rotation is 
more or less like this : grass for three years, some- 
times mowed, sometimes pastured, but usually 
mown once and afterwards pastured each year; this 
is plowed and planted to oats or, if very rich, to 
potatoes. The grass would have been in maybe for 
three j^ears, and on it would have been fed a great 
deal of cake and corn. Cake is either linseed or 
cottonseed cake, broken on the farm. Thus there is 
a lot of fertility stored, by the decaying -grass roots 
and the droppings of the cattle and sheep. After the 
oats come turnips, and these also may be heavily 
manured, and when they are fed off cake will no 
doubt be fed along with them. Thus the land gets 
a second big boost. 

Barley follows the turnips, and clover seed is 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 453 

sown with the barley, though it may stand but one 
year. Potatoes follow the barley, perhaps, and after 
the potatoes comes the liming; then wheat, with 
which are laid down the grasses and clovers for a 
long "lay." I saw in the fields a lot of orchard 
grass. On the farm there is also some Kentucky 
bluegrass, which does not seem to monopolize things 
as it does in the limestone regions of our own coun- 
try. This is approximately the grass mixture used 
on Lawton Farm: there were purchased for sow- 
ing twenty-seven acres, 288 pounds of perennial 
rye grass; 300 pounds of Italian rye grass; 27 
pounds of meadow foxtail; 135 pounds of orchard 
grass ; 108 pounds of meadow fescue ; 27 pounds of 
evergreen grass; 108 pounds of timothy; 27 pounds 
of alsike; 81 pounds of red clover; 54 pounds of 
white; 21 pounds of yellow clover. Total cost, 
$152.50. 

It is interesting to note that Scottish farmers 
are liming their fields regularly; whereas in Eng- 
land liming is nearly a lost art. I saw in Kent en- 
ormous pits whence had been taken chalk in ancient 
days, but whence apparently none had been taken 
for many years. I asked the reason for the cessa- 
tion of so sound an agricultural practice, and was 
told that now labor costs more than it once did, and 
that in consequence to haul chalk miles was ex- 
pensive ; that they now substitute artificial manures 
for the chalk and dung of earlier days. I suspect 
that the fathers in their enthusiasm used more 
chalk than they needed to use, and the sons drew for 



454 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

some years on the unexhausted supply; now they 
really need lime and have forgotten the art of apply- 
ing it. 

Lawton Farm is so fertile and productive that 
I was curious to know its value. In Kent I had 
found farms selling for from $50 to $100 per acre, 
more or less, and of a quality better than could 
be had for nearly the same money in America; so 
I was eager to know how the prices compared in 
Scotland. This, a very fertile farm almost perfect 
in its improvement, with very good buildings, Mr. 
Henderson thought would bring on the market, $150 
per acre. In the United States it would readily 
bring $200 per acre. There is something wrong 
somewhere with land values. The average yield 
of wheat per acre in Scotland is 35 bushels and the 
land furnishes grazing for animals nearly the year 
around. Labor is abundant and very good, and 
mutton brings about double what it brings us. To 
my way of thinking, the Scottish farmer, on a good 
farm, has the better end of it. 

One afternoon at Lawton three women cycled 
up and after resting a while went with Miss Hender- 
son to the splendidly kept tennis court for a game 
of tennis. I was asked to join, but pled age and 
infirmity, so I watched them play and chased errant 
balls. That game of tennis was instructive to me, 
telling me what right living and a Scottish climate 
would do for lassies. It was marvelous the way 
they chased the balls, and the vigor with which 
they played, for hours. Then after supper they 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 455 

played again in the long evening twilight as long 
as light lasted. At tennis any one of those lassies 
would have tired me out two or three times over. 
When the game was concluded, or postponed, they 
cheerily cycled home, nine miles. I tell this not to 
shame our American girls, but just to show what a 
cool northern climate, with oats, cream and right 
living, will enable one to do. 

OVER HEATHERY SLOPES. 

The next morning Mr. Henderson and I rode be- 
fore breakfast up the mountain to get the view and 
see the hill sheep. Early though it was, we met 
small cartloads of hay drawn by big, sleek, fat 
Clydesdales; we saw men in the fields beginning 
their harvest ; the air was like wine or finer, and 
the sun bright. Fields reached a little way up 
the lower slopes of the mountain; then began the 
heather. Heather is a low shrub, growing in a 
dense mat about a foot high. It excludes all else 
when it gets possession. Now it was covered with 
the delicate pink and purple blooms, each one a little 
bell, all making great sheets of color, sometimes 
acres in extent. Then there were acres that were a 
brownish-green and acres of grass between which 
were vividly bright green. When a painter hands 
you a view in the Scottish mountains do not pre- 
sume to criticise its colorings ; he has found them all, 
and could have found more by looking at a different 
season, when there were acres of golden gorse and 
of yellow broom, for instance. We saw the Black- 



456 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

faced ewes with their great cross-bred lambs, from 
Border Leicester rams. They looked larger than 
their mothers, and were industriously cropping the 
dewy grass or stopping now and then to nibble the 
purple honey-flavored heather blooms. Sheep eat a 
good deal of heather, on occasion; it is a mainstay 
in winter. Hives of bees set down in the heather 
were full of activity, and heather honey was rapidly 
being stored. As we rose higher and higher a glori- 
ous panorama outspread below us. The valley we 
had left lay at our feet, a checkerboard of fields, 
green or golden, with masses of dark forest, and 
with stone villages miles away. We gained the 
summit at last and looked over the other side at 
another marvelous valley, much like the one we had 
left. The great river Tay shone in the sun and strid- 
ing across it was the giant bridge that leads to 
Dundee. It was all far too lovely and glorious for 
me to put into words. It explained a lot to me, too, 
of the reason for the passionate love of the Scots for 
their homeland; of the strange mixture in the Scot 
of stern practicality and sentiment. It told me some- 
thing of how it is that Scotland has sent forth 
steady streams of good, strong, clean-living men and 
women — people with high ideals and noble resolves, 
who have done much to influence the world for good. 

MACBETH 'S CASTLE. 

"Do you see that mountain a little way on, with 
the level top, Mr. Wing?" asked Mr. Henderson. 
I assented. "Did ever vou hear of a man named 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 457 

Macbeth then!" "Oh, the man in Shakspeare?" 
"Yes, the same. Well, Macbeth 's castle stood on 
that hill; the ramparts are there today, and across 
the valley is Birnam Wood. Do yon not see it on 
the farther slopes'? You may recall that it was said 
that Macbeth 's castle would stand until Birnam 
Wood should march across the valley. It was a 
sort of prophecy. Well, the soldiers took branches 
of the trees of Birnam Wood and carried them as 
living trees, and so hidden they marched across 
the plain to attack the castle and it fell." 

Shakspeare had stood on this very mountain, 
maybe, and seen these things with his own eyes ; 
had drunk in the scene and seen it in time of storm 
and darkness, too. Macbeth is no fairy tale ; and 
here in this lovely valley beside the grim moun- 
tains, today gay with heather, was the scene of 
perhaps the most tremendous and terrible setting 
forth of the workings of the human ambitions and 
the most terrific lesson of the working of a guilty 
conscience ever conceived by man. What an old 
world is this bonnie Scotland. How stern and grim 
it can be, yet how sweet and smiling and flower- 
decked it was that day. No wonder the people love 
it. No wonder they hold fast to its soil, traditions 
and kindly tongue. 

The Scots have a passion for fertility. They 
enrich their soils in every possible way. I could 
not but observe that the farm laborers in Scotland 
are larger, stronger and more efficient than in Eng- 
land. Is that the result of oats and milk, or is it 



458 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

because they use less alcohol, or is there a combina- 
tion of reasons difficult to unravel? 

Mr. Henderson had turned over to me some of 
his farm account books, so that I could study his 
system, and a very perfect one it proved to be. He 
grazes and feeds a great many cattle and sheep, 
usually sheep, buying them in the market, fatten- 
ing them on grass and cake, and selling them again. 
One of his books was of his own design. Two pages 
are given to each lot of cattle or sheep; the page 
to the left has columns for numbers of animals, 
weights, costs, dates bought and so on. The op- 
posite page has columns for deaths, sales and 
prices received, with dates for all. Thus each lot 
of animals is fully accounted for in the one place. 
A glance shows what they cost, how many were 
lost, how long it took them to fatten and what they 
finally brought. The one deficiency seemed to be that 
no effort was made to estimate the amount of feed 
that they had consumed. However, the profits 
seemed often great, far in excess of what we hope 
to get in America. 

THE GARDENS AT LAWTON. 

Lawton is a well managed, orderly, fertile place. 
Two acres or more are given to lawn and garden; 
the old gardener is also the hostler, a common 
enough arrangement in that land, and a very capa- 
ble gardener indeed. I was happy to note the 
kindness that existed between Miss Henderson and 
all the servants and laborers — a real deep consider- 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 



459 



ation on her part and a willingness to be helpful 
on their part quite refreshing to note. One can eat 
a prodigious quantity of gooseberries without ill re- 
sults, as I know by experience. There were many 
kinds and fine ones in the garden, and the old mother 




SCOTTISH LADS AND LASSIES. 

and I took many a walk there, looking at the flowers 
and fruits, while she encouraged me to try the ber- 
ries on each bush. 

One evening Miss Henderson took me to drive 
to see a famous hedge of beech trees, belonging 
to some wealthy man whose name I have forgotten. 
The hedge was eighty feet high and smooth-trim- 
med on the edges as a double wall. They tell, though, 



460 



IN FOREIGN FIELDS 



that when a man inherits this hedge he does it with 
a sigh and a groan because of the expense of trim- 
ming it. In America one would dare cut it down 
for fuel, but it is not so in the old world, where 




BORDER LE1CESTERS IN THE MARKET AT PERTH. 

they accept duties and obligations as an inheritance, 
cheerfully, doing the best they can with them and 
considering the rights of the public. All men would 
feel wronged if the hedge were to be destroyed. 

We went to Perth to the sheep fair and to see 
sheep sold at auction in pens. Very rapidly the 
sales were made and some went to the butchers and 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 461 

others back to the farms to be fed again. We had 
luncheon in a pleasant little room overlooking the 
street where a crowd of farmers had gathered to 
talk over the events of the day and compare notes 
as farmers do — a sort of clearing-house of farm- 
er intelligences. Then we jogged home together, 
the sister and I, in a governess cart half full of 
parcels that we had bought. On the way we pas- 
sed through old villages, one with .a picturesque 
green or wide, grassy place between the houses and 
an ancient cross in its midst — a relic of Roman 
occupation. Some of the houses were unoccupied 
and going to decay; the population of the land was 
less than it was years ago. This no doubt is due to 
the occupation of our wide prairies and their ex- 
ports of grain, and the advent in Scotland of the 
American self-binder, which makes necessary less 
labor than formerly was in use. 

One day there came down from the West High- 
lands, in full Highland costume, a young barrister 
brother, J. S. Henderson, a fine, interesting, in- 
telligent type of man, who gave me much informa- 
tion concerning the half -wild Black-face sheep and 
Highland cattle of the west. That, he told me, was 
a difficult land of mist and fog and cold, so that 
only the hardiest animals can endure it: 

CROSS-BBED SHEEP IN SCOTLAND. 

Scotland is the land of cross-bred sheep. The 
Black-face ewes come down to the lowland pastures 
and are put to Border-Leicester rams or to Oxford 



462 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

rams. Sometimes the half-bred ewe lambs are 
saved and bred again to similar types of pure-bred 
rams, the result being a fine, strong lamb that is 
easily fattened, and its wool is much more desirable 
than that of the pure Black-face breed. In fact, 
the B]ack-face ewe is in existence only because no 
other breed is so useful as it is for the high, cold, 
wet, poorly-grassed mountains. Transplanted to 
other lands, the Black-faces have seldom succeeded. 
They are wild and almost as intractable as deer, 
but when brought down to the lowland farms and 
confined in feeding pens, they soon adapt them- 
selves to their new environment. 

Edinboro to me is a place of delights. Princess 
Street is so picturesque with its park-like canon on 
one side, its fine and often interesting buildings 
on the other side, and the grim old castle looming 
high on its rock. In Edinboro live the McGregors, 
and that is distinction enough for one town. I first 
met Robert McGregor, who is a great artist and a 
member of the Royal Academy, years ago out at 
Wedderlie, where he was painting a picture of shep- 
herd life. I was then studying Scottish sheep- 
farming, and photographing the sheep. Thus we 
each wearied of our work and rested, walking to- 
gether in the evenings. Robert McGregor was a 
genial companion, and together we took long walks 
over the hills of Wedderlie, exploring old ruined 
towers where once border-guarding soldiers lay and 
watched. There was a young daughter, Sally, who, 
if I must confess it, painted the heads of some of 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 463 

the figures that her father used in the larger work. 
Later I called at their home at Portobello, near to 
the sea, a few miles from Edinboro. There was 
a snug little stone cottage, a wee lawn in front, a 
big and unkempt garden at the back, and in the 
house a mother very full of motherliness. Also 
there were other daughters. Meaning to 
make a call of a few minutes only, I spent some 
exceedingly happy hours there, sitting beside the 
cheery grate fire, watching the kettle boil and later 
taking tea with the family. That was years ago. 

Four years passed ; again I found myself in Edin- 
boro, and when evening came and my work was 
done, I hied me to the top of the little electric tram 
cars that go out to Portobello. I almost feared to 
do it. "All will be changed," said my dismal fore- 
boding. "They will be moved to another part ; some 
will be dead; it will not be as it was." Timidly I 
rung the bell, that evening in 1907. A rosy maid 
answered it and to my queries she made reply; 
"Yes, the McGregors live here; the ladies are at 
home; will you not step in?" In a few moments 
I was face to face with the dear little mother and 
then with Sally. We went to a little studio, all 
her own, built out in the garden, where I saw the 
beautiful heads that she was modeling in clay — 
sketches that she had made here and there in the 
world and the portraits of children. That night I 
sat by the cheerful fireside, and at the table shared a 
meal, and we grew very close together — -the old ar- 
tist with the head of s philosopher, the lovely daugh- 



464 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

ters, the very good and comforting mother, and 
myself. Afterward I saw them again, and always 
they were unalloyed gold. Now was I come once 
more to Edinboro; again had four years passed 
over our heads; again timidly I knocked at the 
well-known door in Portobello. 

It seems like a dream as I write it, but if I 
dreamed true nothing was changed; there still 
burned the fire upon the hearth ; there sat the saint- 
ly mother in her accustomed place ; there smiled 
cheery Robert McGregor and there still remained 
about the board three daughters. Their work went 
on as it always did; the father paints his fine pic- 
tures of still life, putting, it seems to me, more soul 
into his work than ever, and Sally has her garden 
studio, and her work is more interesting than ever. 
Happiness is a sort of vibration, scientists say; 
well, there was something about this household that 
awoke deeper, holier vibrations than one feels often 
in this world. I left the gate of the McGregors 
feeling as though I was leaving a sacred temple, as 
though I had been absolved and lifted to higher 
planes of life and thought. 

I have mentioned the McGregor garden; while 
it was unkempt it nevertheless was a garden of de- 
lights. It had the strangest mixture of gooseber- 
ries, dwarf apple-trees, lilacs, raspberries, currants, 
potatoes and pansies, with a wee lawn-like spot in 
the midst of it, where Sally sometimes would set 
the table for breakfast. I used to long to get to 
work on that garden, it sorely needed it; but per- 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 465 

Ceo as foi*r~fc&>' &<*o{ dktjrs SJiaJu^ 3(i/U*w>£, 






^Z^ Qf (T^^'susr 



5 



£Uc-*pC -Cc^c^" lAteiM 










A "SKETCH" OF MISS M'GREGOR BY ROBERT M'GREGOR; WITH 
AUTOGRAPH. 



466 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

baps after I had pruned and digged and trained 
it would have lost half its charm. I did manage 
to dig up a place and plant lettuce, radishes and 
other hardy salad stuffs at the time of my last visit ; 
they wonderingly came up a little before Thanks- 
giving time and that is all that I know of their ulti- 
mate attainment. Before I reached Edinboro I re- 
ceived a charming letter from the McGregors, in 
which was enclosed a pen sketch of Sally break- 
fasting in the garden. This seems altogether too 
good to be wasted, and while naturally the qualities 
of a girl like Sally can not be presented in a few 
pen strokes, yet the sketch is good. 

IN THE COUNTY OF YOEK. 

Yorkshire has more acres of land than there are 
letters in the Bible. I tell this to take away some- 
thing of the arrogance of my countrymen who im- 
agine America to be all the world and other coun- 
tries mere outlying fringes. Yorkshire has in its 
day been a kingdom. It is a great expanse of laud 
that is mostly fertile and well farmed. Still in 
quest of sheep, I visited a sheep fair at Malton. 
There I met J. Lett, who showed me the market. 
He told me that land on the Yorkshire wolds was 
renting for about $5 per acre, with ''rates" (taxes 
to tenant) at about 60 cents per acre. The farms 
are large, averaging perhaps 800 acres (not 
counting small holdings). Many farmers were 
buying land at from $55 to $200 per acre. A farm 
of 800 acres would carry about 350 Leicester ewes. 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 467 

These might be crossed with Hampshire or Lincoln 
rams. The Lincoln, pure-bred, does not, however, 
find favor in Yorkshire except in certain spots. 

A Yorkshire shepherd has $5 per week, with a 
cottage and garden. In the summer he cares for 
500 or more sheep, going to them on horseback. In 
winter they are folded on the turnips; then a man 
is given 200 to care for, but he must clean and cut 
the "neeps" for the "hoggets" or coming-yearling 
lambs. The old ewes eat their neeps uncut. In 
summer they run on clover on the wolds or on crops 
sown for their use. They go fat to market in the 
spring when they are about a year old; some are 
kept at home to replace the ewes of the flock that 
are sent away. The ewes are not kept past four 
years. Leicester ewes give an increase of 125 
lambs to 100 ewes. The fat yearlings usually bring 
$6.30 each and upward, and their 11 pounds of wool 
is worth about $2.40. 

Farmers in Yorkshire are making money, thinks 
Mr. Lett, but not so rapidly as in the '60 's. London 
imports about 82 per cent of its meats. Mr. Lett 
said that the usual wage scale of Yorkshire would 
be for a head wagoner $140 per year, with board; 
for the second man, $120 and so on down to about 
$100. The foreman or "hind" boards the men and 
receives for this about $1.90 to $2.15 per week for 
such service. A boy begins at 14 years of age with 
$45 per year, advancing to $75 per year with board, 
by the time he is nearly grown. We discussed the 
breaking up of the large farms and the creation of 



468 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

small holdings. Mr. Lett did not think there was 
much chance of profit in operating a fifty-acre farm, 
unless one were a market gardener. 

At Fimber I saw Mr. M. His farm is high up 
on the chalk and of its 800 acres he plows 660. I 
had never before seen so thin a soil under the plow ; 
go down six inches and one would be in clear white 
chalk over a large area. Shallow plowing is there- 
fore the rule. Mr. M. keeps 330 Leicester ewes and 
sells from them yearly 400 lambs. He said that 
this soil would not be at all productive if it were not 
trodden clown often by sheep. He gave me an in- 
ventory of the men and animals needed to operate 
his farm. There were 20 Shire work horses, sixteen 
men for the 800 acres. He paid his foreman $210 
per year with vegetables for him and his men, and 
beer for the men, and $40 extra per man for board- 
ing them. His married laborers each received about 
$4.30 per week with a cottage and garden. Some- 
times they were given piece-work so that they could 
make larger earnings. Each of twelve single men 
had from $90 to $150 per year, with board. Two 
shepherds received $120 each, and one $160 per year, 
and two cattlemen received each $2.40 per week, 
with board. I was especially interested to know 
the number of men employed and the rates of their 
wages, because it gives one a basis for comparing 
conditions. One man is kept to each fifty acres. 
This surely is not an extravagant or excessive 
number. The wages are of course much lower than 
in the United States, as will be readily seen. 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 469 

THE RETURNS FROM A FARM FLOCK. 

To resume the account of the farm practices, 
the lambing is late in March and the ewes are 
shorn in May. As the sheep are on the wolds, in 
hurdles, during the winter their wool becomes so 
muddy it must be washed, or else suffer a dock of 
a shilling to the fleece. For two years the wool 
had brought about 20 cents a pound. The ewes 
clip an average weight of 7y 2 pounds and the year- 
lings or "boggs" 10 to 12 pounds. Sometimes the 
ewes are mated with rams of some other breed. Bred 
to Oxford rams their lambs are big, growthy and 
shear finely; when mated with Hampshire rams the 
lambs are heavier and fatten more rapidly; when 
bred to Lincoln rams the lambs are larger. ' ' This 
is Leicester ground, not Lincoln ground," said 
Mr. M., and added : "Providence put the sheep where 
we find them : Lincolns in Lincolnshire and Leices- 
ters here; it is wrong to attempt to change them." 
The Lincolns do not thrive on the wolds, as they 
do on the level, flat, rich pastures of Lincolnshire 
to which they are so well adapted. 

This is the land where American "cake" linseed 
and cottonseed is bought and fed. Mr. M. begins 
feeding cake in the fall and continues lightly to feed 
it until turnips are ready, when he may drop the 
cake for a time. Usually, however, he feeds it 
throughout the winter. Cake costs for cottonseed 
about $30 per ton, with linseed cake as high as 
$50. Mr. M. feeds more or less maize, mixed with 
broken cake. It has been found that the crops that 



470 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

follow feeding cake on the land are very much bet- 
ter than those following maize feeding. 

The way they manage the turnip feeding is to 
make small enclosures temporary and movable on 
the turnip field, holding about 150 lambs each. In 
these "nets" are placed troughs, and turnips are 
cut in the troughs for the lambs. They also eat 
what they please of the turnips on the ground. 
The lambs are but one day on the ground, going the 
next day to a fresh enclosure, and ewes follow them 
to clean up the turnips that they may have left. 
If then cake is fed with the turnips, the land rapidly 
is enriched, since the sheep carry away nothing ex- 
cept what may be added to their weight. It is one 
of the best turnip-growing regions in England. Mr. 
M. practices the following rotation of crops : Grass, 
which is plowed and sown to oats or wheat, fol- 
lowed by turnips; then oats or barley, again with 
grass seeds. Red clover, white clover, yellow tre- 
foil and Italian rye grass are sown. The meadow 
clover lies but one year; then the land goes again 
to wheat or oats, this because the nature of the soil 
is such that it does not hold grasses well, being 
shallow and calcareous. 

His yields were : wheat, 32 ; oats, 56 ; and barley 
32 bushels per acre. He applies for grain about 
480 pounds of basic slag or 420 pounds of bonemeal 
per acre, or sometimes acid phosphate 480 pounds, 
and for the turnips adds a complete fertilizer con- 
taining nitrogen. "If we do not get roots on this 
land we get poor corn," said Mr. M. "The land 



TJtAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 471 

must be trampled by sheep to give good crops. We 
plow only three inches deep, but then we plow three 
times. Our subsoil is practically entirely chalk. "We 
must have the land solid for turnips here." Mr. 
M. 's great-grandfather was a tenant on this farm ; 
in fact, it has been occupied by his family for more 
than 200 years. Eentals are less today than they 
were thirty years ago. During most years he lays 
by some money, but never any large sum. He has 
gone behind as much as $5,000 in one bad year. 
It requires intense and anxious care on his part 
to keep the men usefully employed, the sheep thriv- 
ing and to make money enough to pay his rent and 
have a surplus. 

Mr. M. has a comfortable big brick farmhouse 
with a delightful old garden in front. I could not 
but observe how his expense is increased by custom. 
For instance, the men were hauling grain to the 
stacks, using large and powerful horses, but the 
wagons were equipped with such small beds that 
they held not half an American load. The wagons 
were stronger than ours, yet so clumsily equipped 
as to destroy half their efficiency. The forks that 
the men used were also clumsy, compared with 
American forks, and I felt that I could have organ- 
ized the equipment, changed the procedure of the 
men and secured an efficiency a half greater. 

From Mr. M.'s very complete and practical 
everyday farm I went to Beverly, a beautiful coun- 
try town, driving out from there to Eobert Fisher's 
farm, where a sale of Lincoln sheep was in progress. 



472 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

My chief memories of that place are of the intelli- 
gent, good-humored people who assembled and the 
rather spirited bidding for the sheep. The prices 
paid were not so large as was expected, reaching 
$150 to $200, but there was an absence of Argen- 
tine buyers. Thence I went to Hull, where I cros- 
sed the wide estuary of the river Humber, to New 
Holland, thence down a little way to Great Grimsby, 
ending in a pleasant inn what had been a happy and 
busy day. Let me quote: 

"It is midsummer. A purple haze shrouds the 
distant forests. The meadows wave on the slopes 
and the fields of wheat and barley are whitening to 
the harvest. Up through the thin barley of the 
chalky soil on the hillside masses of scarlet poppies 
thrust their shameless heads. Mowers rattle drows- 
ily behind the hedge; up in the field men and boys 
busily cock the long-cut hay. It is the harvest moon, 
but the fickle rain god lingers near, and experi- 
mentally sprinkles the wilting grass to see if it 
cannot be revived again. Up on the swelling height 
a great windmill lifts its arms lazily above the 
trees and yawns and stretches itself as it deliberate- 
ly turns the golden corn into snowy flour. 

"The miller must be asleep just now, you avow; 
it is pleasing to think of his opportunities for rest 
and reflection. Young rabbits nibble the short grass 
beside the hedge. A wood-pigeon emits its harsh, 
hoarse note. Under the trees great Lincoln lambs 
recline, and others are out feeding. It is a time of 
rare delight — not hot, not cold, not wet, not dry — a 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 



473 




IN LINCOLNSHIRE TASTCRES. 




A KENTISH FARM-HOUSE. 



474 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

time rich, ripe, ready, when all things seem to say: 
' We are here ; we are in our perfection ; come see 
the depths and greenness and riotousness of my 
woodlands ; come, lie on my sunny slopes ; go where 
you will, you find me prepared for you.' 

"And this is Lincolnshire, famous in song and 
story, rich in historic association; Lincolnshire of 
old Boston; Lincolnshire wrested from the sea in 
the fenlancls; Lincolnshire famous as a cattle and 
sheep breeding country. And I am at historic old 
Grimsby town where the fishing boats make haven 
and the timber yards remind one of the forests of 
our own Northwest. Henry Dudding meets me in 
his hearty bluff way, and we go to the cattle market. 
It is Monday morning. Farmers have brought in 
to be sold some hundreds of sheep, fat from grass 
alone; lambs that have had some c»ke with their 
grass, and some dozen of fairly fleshed cattle, a few 
prime good ones. They are standing in the little 
pens of iron, on hard concrete floor. The auction- 
eers are working away; the cows and bullocks are 
sold separately at auction. It is a slow process, but 
there is time enough. Local butchers do the bid- 
ding and prices vary greatly, even more than they 
would with us for similar classes of cattle. Sheep 
were bringing as much as $13.20 each; cattle as 
high as $90. 

"Mr. Dudding put me into his cart and bade me 
good-bye; he was off to the Lincoln show. The 
smart lad who drove me was dressed in immacu- 
late knee breeches and gaiters— those wonderful 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 475 

English knee breeches that have so much room 
where it may be most needed. The lad was very 
proud of those 'knickers,' and I was glad he wore 
them. It makes one rejoice that he lives to drive 
through an English country in summer-time and see 
all the richness and peace and tranquil beauty. We 
went, a little out of our way to pass the farm where 
William Torr once lived and bred his cattle, and 
where he had his famous sale back in 1875, when he 
sold eighty-four Short-horns for $214,595. All the 
Torrs are gone from here now; some are stock- 
farmers in Africa, Australia and America. There 
were fine red steers feeding across the road from 
the old Torr house; it seemed as though the spirit 
of the old cattle might have come back there, and 
so I photographed them as they stood. Many cattle 
are grazed there now — some are good ones, too. 

AN HISTORIC FARM. 

" Passing a beautiful and well cared-for old stone 
church, passing a finely forested bit of park, turn- 
ing into well-kept fields, back a short distance from 
the road, to a great house set about with shrubs 
and flowers and trees, we were at Riby Grove. 
Mr. Abrams, the genial young factor, met me and 
we spent the day walking over the place, watching 
the sheep and cattle and the hay-making and the 
shepherds. There are about 700 acres in Riby 
Grove. It keeps 1,000 ewes and fattens each year 
about 200 cattle. There are some 140 Short-horns 
also. We know of the Dudding cattle right well, 



476 In foreign fields 

but it is the fame of the sheep that chiefly has at- 
tracted me. Not that the cattle are not excellent; 
they have attained wide fame and honor; but the 
sheep have done wonderful things, and one wishes 
to see a flock that has produced a ram selling for 
$5,000 and many selling for almost as much. I do 
not know that I was there long enough to ' catch on ' 
to know how it was all done; but a study of the 
old shepherd told me a great deal. He is a man with 
a big brain, a big heart and a big lot of persever- 
ance. He is a serious and almost a stern man. I 
have an idea bluff, willful Henry Dudcling finds 
that shepherd fully his match, and that the shep- 
herd has his way many a time. The shepherd, by 
the way, has his large pretty brick cottage better 
than many well-to-do land-owners have in America. 
He has his assistants ; he is a fixture, as much so as 
the sheep. That is one of the secrets of this land 
of wonderful results in breeding. The men stay ; 
they are devoted to their charges and to their mas- 
ters' interests. Men with the caliber of Henry 
Dudding's shepherd would soon be independent 
land-owners and employers of others in America. 
How are we in America to unriddle this riddle? 

"What a lot of cake these men feed. Pure-bred 
cattle on grass, lambs on grass and shearing rams 
on grass, all have their bite of cake (linseed or cot- 
tonseed meal pressed into thin sheets and broken 
at the farm). Hurdling is only a little practiced at 
Riby Grove. The yearling rams are in the hurdles 
on grass ; they have sheds and get mangels and a 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 477 

bit of cake. The ewes are away now on grass lands 
near the marshes. The lambs are on fresh grass 
pasture, white with clover. They raise sheep in Lin- 
colnshire in such a way as would be impossible of 
imitation with us. We could not keep lambs healthy 
on such old grass, nor do they always succeed. Some 
years they too have losses from parasitism. 

"The value of the Lincoln sheep lies in its size, 
its sturdiness, its good mutton form and its wonder- 
ful fleece. Lincoln wool is not so exceedingly valu- 
able 'in its pure state; it ranks coarser than the 
Shropshire and finer than Cotswold wool, but when 
Lincoln sheep are crossed on Merino blood, the 
wool is wonderful, both in amount and quality. 
There are few breeds so well adapted to crossing 
on the Merino when wool and mutton are taken 
into consideration. This fact has caused the great 
importation of Lincoln rams into the Argentine. 
They have taken them down by the hundreds. They 
have taken enough of them down there so that Ar- 
gentine mutton is far and away ahead of what we 
send to London. There is no doubt that a wide- 
spread infusion of Lincoln blood into our ranges 
would be worth much to our people." 

The foregoing was written during my first visit 
in 1903. And it is still true, only the skies have tem- 
porarily changed. Lincolnshire was hot and dry, 
as seemed all the northern world. Still was Henry 
Budding, prince among sheep breeders, the same 
genial man whom I knew so many years ago. The 
old shepherd, a master of sheep indeed, was with 



478 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

him. It is not a wonder that Englishmen can do 
such great things in the way of breeding when they 
can call to their command such men as this — men 
who in America would be their own masters and 
like as not millionaires in the bargain. Well, Henry 
Budding had a bit of a grouch against the world 
in general. Mutton, he thought, was ruinously low; 
he had had to sell good "hogs" (yearlings) for 
from $7.20 to $9.60 each. Then he had paid for his 
corn 79. cents for our bushel of 56 pounds. There is 
not much profit in that, certainly. To grow turnips 
cost fully $75 per acre, he said. Mr. Dudding rents 
altogether more than 2,200 acres ; his average rental 
was slightly more than $5 per acre. 

They were cutting oats, a marvelously heavy 
cutting, and yet they had not lodged, as they would 
with us. The heads were full of plump grain, but 
in the stubble there were no young clovers. The 
drouth had killed them. Even the field peas had 
failed because of heat and drouth, but the wheat 
was rarely good. With the old shepherd, I made the 
rounds of some of the nearby pastures, seeing the 
behemoth "lambs," each lot getting its bite of cake 
and corn in troughs on the grass. Mr. Dudding 
talked of the old days when his father was alive and 
soil-building work was vigorously going on. Then 
they took the chalk out from under the soil (great 
pits are left whence it came) and spread it over 
the fields at the rate of twenty or more cartloads 
to the acre. The frost made the chalk fall to pieces ; 
it became mixed with the soil when it was plowed; 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 479 

then clovers and grass would grow on land that was 
barren before. "Our lands needs chalking again, 
all of it," declared Mr. Dudding. "It does not grow 
clovers as it ought — not as it did in my father's 
day. ' ' 

He buys ground lime and applies it to the land, 
a half-ton to the acre once in the rotation, doing this 
because it is easier than to take chalk out from un- 
der the fields. The Lincolnshire rotation is barley or 
oats with which will be sown "seeds;" that is, grass 
and clovers, usually rye-grass and alsike, reel and 
white clovers ; then wheat or oats, followed by tur- 
nips and then with # good fertilization barley and 
seeds again. Manure is applied liberally when the 
land is laid down to grass. This is a lesson to us 
in America. 

With Mr. Dudding I drove over breezy high- 
lands, beside a noble bit of forest, to see a small 
farmer whose farm is all on the upland. As we 
drove along, I remarked a curious thing: the whole 
country was new. That is, nothing appeared to be 
older than, say fifty or sixty years. Farms, farm- 
steads, houses and churches — not one was old, and 
the fields were rather large and square. "Why, 
Mr. Dudding, this looks like a new piece of country. ' ' 
"Well, it is a new country, Mr. Wing. When I was 
a lad there was not a fence anywhere hereabout, 
nor a house, nor a cultivated field." "Why, what 
was the reason of that, I wonder?" "The land was 
too poor to support anyone, Mr. Wing. There were 
gorse bushes scattered about, and poor, thin grass 



480 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

between them. Gypsies came here to camp and to 
pasture their ponies and donkeys. I came here 
when I was a lad to shoot wild rabbits. Only about 
fifty years ago did they begin the work of redeem- 
ing this land. " " My ! I am glad that you have told 
me this. Now please tell me how the land was made 
fertile." 

"It was done with chalk, first of all," Mr. Dud- 
ding said. "Men mined it out from under the soil 
and put it on with wheelbarrows. I do not know 
how much they put on, but I should guess that it 
was at least forty tons to the acre. Before that, 
the soil was sour ; that is why it was barren. After 
the chalking, it was plowed and given a heavy dress- 
ing of bonemeal — at least 1,000 pounds to the acre. 
Then clovers and grass and grain were grown, the 
fields were fenced, farmsteads built and men have 
gone on farming it as you see today." 

It was an amazing story. It had every look of 
a prosperous, fertile land, teeming with grass and 
clover, with very good grain indeed if one could 
judge by the great stacks. I should say that there 
must be thousands of square miles of poor 
land in eastern America that could be redeemed in 
similar manner, but not so easily, because we do 
not often find chalk or soft limestone underlying 
our farms. We must buy the harder limestones 
ground, or use burned lime, but it is convincing to 
see that the whole problem of soil-building and 
maintaining fertility was understood fifty years ago 
in England and it is doubtful whether the present 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 481 

generation of farmers is as thorough a one as that 
which preceded it. 

On the hill we found W. H. Stanewell of Swal- 
lowmount. He keeps 210 Lincoln ewes and breeds 
them to Hampshire rams. He feeds the lambs a 
bit of cake all summer, about one-half pound a day 
to each one, and in January he sells them, getting 
many times $15 per head for them, but he thinks he 
will now do well to get $10. He was busy in his 
wheat-stacking, as were most of the neighboring 
farmers. We met Matthew Addison, a great ten- 
ant-farmer, renting 3,500 acres and keeping about 
1,650 sheep. 

IN SUNNY FRANCE. 

" Sunny France" proved sunny indeed. Some- 
thing had gone wrong with the weather ; all Europe 
was burning with fierce heat and drouth. America 
suffered similarly, but there it was not felt so keen- 
ly, because in America one expects heat and drouth 
in summer. Along the railway to Paris, the wheat- 
fields were burning, the pastures yellow and short 
and when automobiles dashed along the highway, 
they raised great clouds of dust. All Europe seemed 
in a fever induced perhaps by sleepless nights in 
stifling chambers. All the railway employes in 
England had been called on strike; true, they dared 
not go out and did not go out, but there were fright- 
ful undercurrents of murmurings in nearly every 
land. In France, the housewives, enraged at the 
cost of bread and meat, gathered in mobs that 



482 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

wrecked bakeries and sacked butchers' shops. The 
soldiers of France were called out to save the pur- 
veyors of foods from the Amazonian women of the 
land. In England, my sympathies were all with 
the railway strikers. I devoutly wished that they 
might all strike; then they would surely win. It 
was for so small a minimum wage that they asked — 
less than $6.50 per week for the carters, if I remem- 
ber correctly, and the press of GPreat Britain thun- 
dered at the poor fellows as though their striking 
had been a crime. I could not but think that to pay 
their labor more in Great Britain would at once 
prove a partial or complete cure for their "hard 
times," for then the men would have money with 
which to buy, and to keep factories running. Main- 
ly because of fear that they would lose their service 
pensions, the men did not go out; the strike was a 
failure. 

A FEW DAYS IN PAEIS. 

Paris was a veritable furnace. London had been 
terrible. In no American city have I ever suffered 
such exhaustion from heat as I did in Paris in Au- 
gust, 1911. For some reason, heat in Europe is 
more depressing in its effect than it is in America. 
I do not know why, unless there is in Europe more 
moisture in the air ; one reason doubtless is that Eu- 
ropean rooms are not commonly so airy as are 
American. In Paris I lived for a few days with 
two American friends, artists — James and Edna 
Hopkins. I was lucky to find them living there, be- 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 483 

cause James Hopkins was a farmer's son in Ohio 
before lie became an artist of note, and he was glad 
to go with me to the country for a few days as my 
interpreter. Meanwhile, during my stay in their 
very charming studio home, I learned several things 
of interest. First let me mention that I learned the 
pleasure that comes from real simple living. The 
Hopkinses did not always keep a servant; while I 
was with them they were without one. In all house- 
hold duties, each took part, with the result that little 
time was wasted in "housekeeping." Both are 
artists and both hard workers at their profession. 

We used to get up early in the morning, while 
it was fairly cool, and I would sally out to find fruit 
for the morning meal. Paris has myriads of little 
shops, where one buys tomatoes, melons, peaches, 
butter and eggs. Some of these shops are better 
than others, and some of the women who keep them 
have reputations for greater honesty than do others. 

One learns after a time where to buy. Here 
one can buy an egg, a tomato or a pear ; I think he 
could even buy a cherry, although I never tried; 
but he evokes no smile if he buys one egg, one pear 
or one tomato. It is a land of retail dealing in mi- 
nute quantities. I found prices much as they would 
be with us — perhaps a little dearer. A cantaloupe 
cost 40 cents, the dearest thing that I bought. A 
few tomatoes, weighed, of course, cost 20 cents. 
Bread was not dear, though dearer than with us; 
good butter was very clear. One morning I bought 
20 cents worth for breakfast and ate nearly all of 



484 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

it myself at that meal, and I am considered a small 
eater. One could get delicious unsalted butter at 
these little markets. 

When I would return to the studio, I would find 
breakfast ready and awaiting me. It consisted of 
oatmeal, coffee, toast and fruit. We did a lot of 
talking between bites; for we had ideas to burn, 
aching to be aired. It took about fifteen minutes 
to do the breakfast things; then we were at liberty 
to do the real work of the day. Luncheon at mid- 
day was an ideal meal, it seemed to me. Mrs. Hop- 
pins prepared it and it consisted usually of one 
thing only, with usually fruit as dessert. To pre- 
pare one dish is not dreadfully hard work, nor does 
it mean a great lot of utensils to clean up. In the 
evening we went to some restaurant. Thus the 
housekeeping did not much break into the Hopkins' 
time and they were free to work. I could never see 
why women ordinarily prepare so many varieties 
of food at one time; one, two, or at the most three, 
should do as well, varying from day to day. I sup- 
pose that James Hopkins' time was very valuable 
to himself, yet to get out into the country he con- 
sented to become again my interpreter. Once be- 
fore he had acted in that capacity, years ago, and 
I must here tell of that experience. 

IN LA PERCHE. 

I had been for weeks traveling alone through 
Europe. For days I was in France, where I 
wandered about mostly by myself, unable to 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 485 

speak with the people because of not understand- 
ing their language. I had been happy, but yet 
I was lonely. It suddenly occurred to me, "Why, 
here, I need not longer be lonely; in Paris, not 
far off, are two dear friends, James R. Hopkins 
and his wife. I will telegraph them ; they shall come 
down and spend Sunday with me." The telegram 
was sent. The answer came back that they would 
be on the Sunday morning train. A thrill of joy 
went through me as I read their telegram. That 
night I slept well; my very dreams were happy 
ones; my sub-consciousness was possessed with the 
idea that only very good things were going to hap- 
pen to me. I awoke early and lay awhile planning 
the clay. Everything I planned was tinged with joy. 
I was resolved that this should be a red-letter day 
of my life. Bells called from the great church near- 
by. I got up and went out into the street. Women 
and a few men were hurrying along to early service 
— to some mass as I supposed. I followed them and 
going into the vast old church, dropped on my own 
knees and sought to attune my own soul to the uni- 
verse, meanwhile remembering my loved ones in 
America. 

After breakfast I was again in the street. There 
were many children, dressed alike, the little girls 
in long white veils, with wreaths of white flowers 
on their heads. The veils were like brides' veils. 
They were going towards the old church. It was 
evidently the great day of their first communion. 
I followed them and found a place in a great church 



486 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

packed with people. The children were kneeling 
together at the front in the chancel. The service 
proceeded. The music was grand, reaching the 
soul ; the words of the chanting I did not know. We 
remained contantly on our knees, on little foot-stools 
provided. The fatherly old priest did his mysteri- 
ous acts at the altar where many candles blazed. 
The flock of white-veiled little girls and the quiet 
and subdued little boys kneeled in their places. The 
attitude of all that vast mass of people was one of 
love for those children. One could look back over 
one's own life and see the blotches in it and pray. 
But what is this happening? The old priest has 
taken a tall candle and lit it from the lights of the 
altar. • He comes with it to the group of assembled 
children. He smiles tenderly and upon them. Now 
you see that each child has a candle, long and white; 
the good old priest holds his lighted one down and 
the little ones lean theirs toward his and seek to 
get a light. When once a few of theirs are lit the 
others lean theirs toward that one and seek to bor- 
row each one his own light. Some little trembling 
hands fail to hold their candles still enough to 
catch the flame. Motherly women hovering near 
come to steady the little hands till they have secur- 
ed their coveted lights. Some of the candles lose 
their fire and must be lit again by trembling hands. 
The beauty and significance of it all over- 
whelmed me; tears came to my eyes. "Ah," I 
cried; "was it not always so? Do we not all take 
our light from one another? Is it not hard to get 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 487 

our candles properly lit, and do they not go out oft- 
times and need to be lit again?" It was a scene 
of wonderful beauty — the vast, dim old church, with 
its histories of human life and human hopes and 
human suffering and human joy ; the vast concourse 
of people, come together because of their love of 
children, and their desire to live better lives. The 
children, just as children are everywhere, were mer- 
ry, innocent and mischievous. They were just at 
life's threshold, timidly entering, hesitant, shy, half 
afraid, helped as much as any one can be helped by 
those who had gone on years and years ago, but 
who, after all, may have been less wise than the 
little ones themselves. 

I came away from the old church before the close 
of the service, because it was near train time, and 
with a heart stirred down well to its deepest depths 
I hastened to the railway station. The train drew 
in, on time, and at a window stood and beckoned to 
me Edna and James Hopkins. I pushed eagerly 
through the crowd and seized their hands. I should 
have liked well enough to hug them, so glad was I 
to see them. This gladness seemed something phys- 
ical; all my nerves and muscles awakened, eager to 
do something to give my old friends joy. 

We walked through the quaint streets of the 
old town of Nogent-le-Rotrou. It seemed to me 
that I owned the place, in a way; as though I had 
lived long there. What happiness it was to point 
out to my friends this old church and that old cas- 
tle and this or that quaint street or market square. 



488 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

We all went chatting along together, like happy 
children, asking questions, telling little incidents 
and revealing ourselves to one another as men and 
women rarely do save in times when they are very 
glad. 

DRIVING IN RURAL FRANCE. 

Then we secured two carriages and an interpre- 
ter and the interpreter's fat wife, and drove ten 
miles over a lovely road, over hills — like the hills 
that lie between my home and Urbana ; only these 
hills were longer and the road incomparably fine. 
Along the way there were meadows and wheatfields, 
full of flowers, great masses of poppies in bloom, 
roses, violets, and many sorts of lovely flowers. Our 
carriages were drawn by sedate Percheron horses 
that walked slowly up the hills; we sprang out and 
gathered armloads of flowers and took them with 
us. We gathered other armloads of fresher ones, 
then regretfully lay those first gathered by the road- 
side. We passed through wonderful green, dense, 
shaded and mysterious woodlands, and by pic- 
turesque cottages. We came at last to a quaint old 
village, high upon the hills, a village where a horse 
fair was in progress. It was a great fete or holi- 
day. The streets were decorated with little pine 
trees set as though growing, with flags and stream- 
ers; the people had come in donkey carts and fine 
carriages and afoot, till all the streets were full. 
We got seats in the little inn, where we talked more 
soberly of home and dear ones and of life in its new 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 489 

aspects ; and after a time enjoyed a dinner that was 
served by that best sauce, a ravenous appetite, for 
it was now about two o 'clock. No marring incident 
befell us, and when that night I pressed the pillow 
with my face, it was with the consciousness that I 
had spent one of the happiest days of my life and 
that I was still happy, for my friends lay near me 
in the adjoining room. 

I have heard that it was wicked to be happy. I 
do not believe it; I think that to be happy is to be 
good. Well do I recall the following day; all my 
life it will remain with me. James M. Fletcher had 
asked Mr. and Mrs. Hopkins and me to go with him 
that day on his rounds among the Percheron breed- 
ers. We must start at daybreak. We had a good 
machine and a good chauffeur; the roads were per- 
fect. From Nogent we sped up a long slope ; below 
us the valleys lay stretched out, half hidden in the 
morning mist, like a bride behind her white veil — 
beautiful, smiling, verdant valleys, dotted with trees 
and studded with homesteads. We kept the wide, 
straight, white road, all perfectly clear to the ex- 
treme edges of the grass that bordered it, with no 
ditches along it, only grassy slopes and a little rise 
of turf, like a sweet potato ridge at the extreme 
edge, marking its boundary. These roads were de- 
signed by Napoleon, planning a hard, white cen- 
ter for his cavalry and artillery. The grassy sides 
were for his foot soldiers. Sometimes we flew along 
avenues of poplars and cottonwoods for miles ; then 
we would come to a mile or more of apple trees, 



490 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

planted by the roadside. They have a way there of 
putting apple and pear trees in nurseries and train- 
ing them to grow with straight, upright stems about 
ten feet high, strong enough to resist cattle; then 
they are transplanted to pastures or roadsides for 
shade, and from their apples, both cider and brandy 
are made. 

It was pleasant, this swift skimming along 
through the delightful green world. We passed by 
picturesque houses and farms and the old villages 
all too swiftly. One would like to linger at a thou- 
sand spots that we espied that day. Our chauffeur 
tried to be careful and considerate toward all the 
motorists and others whom met or passed, and it 
was interesting to see how differently our approach 
was taken by the various animals and humankind. 
Very sensibly the horses usually paid us no man- 
ner of attention. Donkeys (the old women were 
going to market in donkey carts by the scores), were 
more unruly, and some of them brought us to an 
abrupt stop; since they stubbornly refused to get 
out of the way. One donkey, with more than ani- 
mal intelligence, backed his cart squarely crossways 
of the road and stood there, the personification of 
stubbornness, completely barring the way, while the 
woman, with much excited talking, made a hurried 
dismount with her precious eggs and butter. The 
things that she said to that donkey with her face 
close to his imperturbable ear would be interesting 
to read if they could be translated. Another don- 
key stood dreamily in the road, crossways, complete- 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 491 

ly 1 slocking it, and gazing at ns with supercilious in- 
difference, as though to say, "All right; come on; 
if you care to wreck a $5,000 automobile on a $20 
donkey, I am willing to be the goat." 

We paid heed to the cows, however, since one 
can never tell in which direction they may dodge at 
the last moment, and when we neared a flock of 
roadside sheep our chauffeur came fairly to a stand- 
still, explaining that while sheep looked innocent 
they were, from his viewpoint, "the very devil." 

AT A FEENCH FARMER'S HOME. 

Village after village flew past us until at last 
we stopped at the farm of M. August Tacheau, 
where we inspected many splendid Percheron horses. 
Then M. Tacheau in his own automobile accompa- 
nied us, and we sped on past more tiny farming 
villages, until we reached the farm of M. De jours. 
Here again we stopped, while stallion after stallion 
was brought out for our inspection. All of them 
were in perfect order, all perfectly groomed and 
all posed for us as though they had practiced pos- 
ing since colthood, which, in truth, they had. Mr. 
Fletcher's e3 r e soon noted the best ones; the others 
were returned to their stables. Then followed a 
season of dickering, after which certain of the best 
were booked for American pastures. While the men 
were dickering over the purchases, we three ex- 
plored the farm. It was a place of about 400 acres, 
which is unusually large for the Perche country, 



492 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

and also, which is unusual, it was a rented place. 
Beside the horses it had grand Normandy cows, 
full of milk and beef. There was a great court- 
yard of which the dwelling house and horse stables 
made one side and the cow stables another side, and 
a long building holding hay, carts, chickens, rabbits 
and farm laborers made the third side. Within this 
court there were chickens, newly hatched and not 
yet allowed to run (if they ever are, I do not know 
it) ; turkeys, ducks and an enormous pile of ma- 
nure. A new barn was building. The roof was 
framed together just as are church roofs, tremen- 
dously strong, being of the trunks of trees hewn to 
a sort of shape, yet retaining the natural curves 
of the trees. On this roof tiles were being laid, and 
between posts it would be rilled with other tiles, 
then given a coating of plaster. This barn will be 
in good repair 600 years from today. 

We went into the house and into a fine old liv- 
ing room, which was also the kitchen. It was beau- 
tifully neat and clean, having the invariable im- 
mense fireplace where things were cooked. A small 
dining-room was probably used only when there 
were guests with the family, for the common din- 
ing table was in the room with the fireplace. Out 
on the upland meadows was sainfoin ("holy hay") 
in full bloom and all aglow with its red spikes of 
pea-like blooms, ready for the mower, and making 
the richest of hay. It was a beautiful field. We 
sped to the famous farm of A. Lefeuvre, and here 
we saw our. ideal of what a country place ought to 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 493 

be, in France or elsewhere. There was a great 
court, perhaps 300 feet in diameter, flanked by 
great stone barns on the sides, and the dwelling, 
occupying one side in the center, but not attached 
to the barns, though commanding all. Here was 
spread out before our eyes a wonderful array of 
horses, all blacks but one; he was a gray. Every 
horse was in perfect condition, in high flesh, with a 
shining coat, full of life and action. We went into 
the stables to see what they were fed, and learned 
that oats, bran, barley and green forage made their 
ration. Alfalfa or sainfoin, one or the other, the 
horses must have, and some men told us that one 
was the better; some that it was the other. 

What a parade of horses that was. Their mas- 
ter was as much of a show to us as the horses. He 
was a man of splendid energy and activity. How he 
marshalled, commanded and disported them! 
America produces strong men, but I have never 
seen one quite the equal of A. Lefeuvre, fils. He 
is in earnest, full of tireless energy, intelligent and 
has the same sort of intuition that is given only to 
painters, sculptors and great breeders. At last the 
bargaining was done, or put off till another day, and 
the impatient madame ushered us into the dining- 
room to partake of our long-delayed breakfast. In- 
deed we were ready for it, seeing that it was now 
past one o'clock and we had fasted since the even- 
ing before. What a breakfast that was. Beginning 
with delicious soup, hard, crusty sweet bread, yel- 
low butter that tasted like the sweetest cream, a, 



494 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

lobster as large as a groundhog, fresh asparagus 
and a peacock roasted in some miraculous manner 
that left a part of its glorious feathers unsinged — ■ 
oh, what's the use trying to describe a meal like 
that, attended to by people with appetites like ours? 

THROUGH A FRENCH FOREST. 

Afterward we rode through more green and 
lovely country, and picturesque villages, and over 
great cool uplands, with too poor a soil to produce 
the greatest horses, for horses grow best from pas- 
tures rich in lime. The roads seemed to prefer to 
climb to the high ridges and keep there, and there 
also we found many little villages. We noted the 
smiling valleys stretched out below us, far as the 
eye could reach, all dotted with trees and pic- 
turesque gables of farms. In the poorer soil of the 
highlands grew beeches and birches, and all the veg- 
etation was unlike that of the rich valleys. Gorse, 
broom and even heather appeared along the way, 
with all manner of blossoming things. The farms 
grew rye and oats, and colts were not much seen in 
the pastures. At last, with no warning, we wound 
about through a sleepy little village where men had 
an old sawmill; just beyond we entered a forest, 
vast, deep, solemn, ancient and honorable forest — 
a dim, shady, mysterious, temple-like forest, where 
one could look afar between straight and lofty stems 
of oak and beech. Not a fallen branch lay on the 
earth. It was a forest that one felt had always been 
there, made by the very spirit of the hills, of magic. 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 495 

compelling wonder, love and half -fear, where to 
clear or despoil wonld indeed be sacrilege. At first, 
I dreaded lest we should, with our swift-running 
machine, dash hastily through and be done; but no 
fear; we sped on and on through the dim, silent 
aisle of the white road, straight as an arrow, little 
traversed yet perfect as a city street. Here and 
there we passed narrow intersecting wood roads 
that went into the further depths. We met teams 
coming out laden with spoil of logs and of wood, 
but for mile after mile the road stretched. In the 
very heart of the forest we came to a greater na- 
tional highway, finer than one of our good park 
roads, with green and close-cropped grass along its 
edges. It was a wide, straight, white highway; 
along it streamed an endless procession of wagons 
and carriages, donkey carts and people on foot. 
There was a great spring in the green depths, walled 
ages ago with stone, and near by was a summer 
house where picnickers loitered, but did not mar nor 
deface. We drank at the fount and then passed on, 
as one passes from a dream into waking life again. 
We had seen a forest, a state forest, a well-managed, 
profitable, eternal forest that belonged to all the 
people of France — such, let us hope, as we may see 
in our own land some day. This was the forest of 
Belleme. I hope that it will endure for thousands 
of years, growing trees and silences and cool places 
and emotions that touch the heart of man and make 
him reverent and grateful and happy. 

My friends went back to their work in Paris, 



496 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

and with Mr. Fletcher and Ernest Perriot I went 
from farm to farm, looking at the colts at the sides 
of farmers' mares — one at this farm, two there, 
three at another place. Each colt had been sired 
by one of M. Perriot 's horses; he therefore felt a 
special interest in it, as it was his right to purchase 
it if the colt showed quality. We saw the mares 
usually at work, some of them at hard work, and in 
thin flesh ; more often they were gently worked, and 
were in fine order. The better the pastures the 
better the mares and their colts. At one farm a lad 
above a barn on a hillside was plowing. I went to 
turn a furrow for him. The soil was a stiff clay, 
like the soils of limestone in central Ohio, but so 
well manured that it was filled with earthworms. 
In an adjoining field was alfalfa. The mares took 
their work steadily and easily, and were never hur- 
ried. The land had already had one plowing, and 
this was the second, so often given in France. I 
observed the tranquil manners of the great mares 
and knew that they were quite unused to blows or 
sharp cries. Just below us in the stable the colts 
were munching green clovers and sound, dry oats. 
The men never forget their charges. At every op- 
portunity there is a kind word, a rubbing of noses, 
a patting and caressing that the colts enjoyed. One 
could put one's hand on any part of the little 

animal, and it showed neither resentment nor fear. 

# # # 

There, that was written five years ago; it intro- 
duces us to France and to my friends, the Hopkinses, 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 497 

We will go afield with, them presently. I think the 
French farmer of the best type is the most success- 
ful in the world. He is close to his work, his soil, 
his animals and his men. Eich he may be, and high- 
ly educated, yet he never seems to leave off his per- 
sonal touch with the soil itself. The British farmer 
is more or less of a "gentleman;" he delegates the 
work to foremen and himself goes driving off to the 
market, where he may spend many hours at the inn, 
while a bailiff wrestles feebly with the problem of 
pushing the farm work. It is not so with the French 
farmer; he is "on the job" all the time, sternly prac- 
tical, and a devout lover of fertility, good crops and 
good animals. Usually, however, the Englishman 
excels in adorning the home grounds, planting 
lawns and parks and all that ; the Frenchman is too 
sternly practical to do much along that line. The 
French farmer is a pastmaster of soils and legumi- 
nous crops. 

GLIMPSES OF A FEENCH FAEM. 

It was in 1903 that I first secured a letter to 
M. E. Delacour of Gouzangrez. I recall with keen 
pleasure all the circumstances of that first visit. 
M. Delacour came himself to Paris to fetch me to 
his place. He was a stalwart, courtly, handsome 
man, and his clothes were not at all farmer-like. 
We went out together on the little train that runs 
out to Us; he did not speak English nor I French, 
yet we managed to converse all the way. We did 
it in sign language. I had lived once among the 



498 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

Ute Indians. We would look out of the car windows 
and see a field all a-bloom with riotous clovers, or a 
field waving with glorious wheat; then we would 
point to it and smile and wave our hands appreci- 
atively. We would see some sort of farm practice 
that did not look good to us; thereat we would 
frown and shake our fists. I had not the least idea 
when we should find an interpreter, knowing only 
that M. Delacour had asked that I should not take 
one with me. We alighted and entered a fine car- 
riage, drawn by two beautiful horses, and drove out 
over the plain on a moisty, misty half-sunny morn- 
ing. Soon M. Delacour with smiles and gestures 
told me that we had entered upon his domain. The 
first field that I recall was of wheat, being harvested 
by American binders, each one drawn by two yokes 
of splendid oxen. The wheat stood level with the 
backs of the oxen, a thick, shining, yellow mass of 
it and not fallen to earth. As the wheat was taken 
away, the stubble was green with young clovers and 
alfalfa. Beyond the wheatfield lay the meadow, 
and here eight men mowed the rich, rank grass and 
clovers, all a-bloom. They used scythes with wide, 
sharp blades and straight snathes. I got out of 
the carriage to try my skill with the scythes, and 
so sharp were they that I did quite good work, it 
seemed to me, until the old man laughingly took the 
tool away from me and showed me how much more 
skillfully he could use it than I. As fast as the grain 
was mown, it was raked together by women and tied 
up in tiny shocks, which were close-set, so that the 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 499 

rain that fell frequently just then would not bleach 
it. Of this, I am sure, I had never before seen so 
great a burden of grass, clover and alfalfa together 
upon a piece of land. 

SUGAR BEETS AND SHEEP. 

Beyond the meadow we came to a field of sugar 
beets. Short, strong men worked in the beets, hoe- 
ing them with an abandon and a fury hard to com- 
prehend until I learned that they were Belgian la- 
borers, and that they all worked at piece work 
and not by the day. The beets were luxuriant; 
their dark green leaves covered the earth. We drove 
through the narrow streets of an old stone-built vil- 
lage ; the houses were occupied by laborers who did 
the work of the farm, and in the midst of this quaint 
and picturesque village I marveled at the great cas- 
tle where lived the Delacours themselves,, surrounded 
by their cattle, sheep, horses and peasantry. We 
drove through a great archway into the court of 
the old castle, and at once there came to meet us 
a strong young woman who spoke English nearly 
as well as she spoke French. She was governess 
in the Delacour family, and was to be our interpre- 
ter, it seemed. At once my questions began to fly. 
We went first into the very large stone stables 
which housed 2,000 sheep, beautifully clean and fat 
and fine. All were Dishley Merinos, that curious 
cross-bred race of France. It is a combination of 
Leicester and Soissonnais Merino. They were bed- 
ded in clean yellow straw, stood nibbling green clov- 



500 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

ers with the blossom on, and were as beautiful a 
sight of the kind as I had ever seen. There were 
more sheep, to be in perfect health, than I had ever 
seen together away from the western ranges. Pres- 
ently a wise old shepherd, with a wise old dog, took 
the sheep away to the stubble-fields to glean, and 
we went to see the cows in their stalls. They were 
eating ravenously the delicious fresh-cut green 
clovers, sainfoin, alfalfa and red clover mixed. We 
saw the great Percheron horses coming and going 
with enormous loads of sheaves of wheat; we saw, 
in fact, much of the life of the farm. And then we 
went to luncheon. The interior of the house was 
elegant, with fine books, pictures and silver. The 
luncheon was of course a good one, and the talk, 
thanks to our interpreter, went far afield, crossing 
the Atlantic and going to South Africa, where M. 
Delacour had a son who had gone to introduce the 
Dishley sheep. 

Later we roamed the place again, I in the lead, 
the others good-humoredly following to answer my 
questions, for I was like a child. We came to an 
enormous pile of manure, one of the greatest that 
I had ever seen east of Nebraska, and I stood for 
some time gazing at it. M. Delacour spoke rapidly 
to the interpreter; she turned to me with a smile. 

"Ah, you gaze upon the pile of manure, Mr. 
Wing?" 

"Yes, pardon me; it is such a big pile, is it not?" 

"Indeed it is. M. Delacour asks me to say to 
you that Gouzangrez always has been famous for 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 501 

its fine heaps of manure, but he thinks that this year 
he has perhaps a finer lot than ever before. He 
asks me to tell you that his father and his grand- 
father before him were noted for the manure heaps 
that the stock made, but he thinks that he has great- 
er ones. And all this fertility that you see about 
these castle walls, all the wealth of grain and all 
the bloom of clover, come from the careful hoarding 
of manures. The manure feeds the land and the 
land feeds the sheep, cattle and horses ; yes, and the 
men, too, who live about these castle walls." It is 
no wonder that they prize it and glory in its amount 
and nature. After a time I walked out a little way 
to a rise, whence I could look afar over the great 
farm. There were the meadows all pink and purple 
with bloom and the wheatfields rich and yellow; 
everywhere that I turned I was presented with a 
sight of a land teeming with fertility. I dug my 
foot down into the earth; the soil was loamy and 
filled with humus — a happy place indeed for plant 
roots. This thought came: "In Ohio we have lived 
scarcely one hundred years, and already we begin 
to talk of worn-out lands. Here are fields that one 
hundred years ago were old fields." Then I re- 
flected a bit and added: "Yes, five hundred years 
ago these fields were old," and then a further 
thought came to me, almost making me shiver with 
the immensity of it, and I said, "Yes, yes, a thou- 
sand years ago these were old fields and yet today 
they are more fertile than any in America." 

I examined then, with care, to see what it was 



502 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

that these men were doing that resulted in such fer- 
tility. Wide were the fields of wheat, but wider 
were the fields of sainfoin, alfalfa and clovers. Leg- 
umes covered the land and reddened it with bloom. 
Their roots were laboratories that incessantly gath- 
ered nitrogen from the air. The crops grown were 
fed to good animals and the manures returned to 
the land. Some mineral fertilizers were added; 
then they just kept at it for some hundreds of years ; 
that was all. 

REVISITING A FRENCH FARMER. 

M. Delacour was more than an acquaintance. 
In after years he wrote me letters telling of the 
practices and operations of the farm, and once, when 
he heard that I was in Paris, he came down to ask 
me again to visit Gouzangrez, but that day time for- 
bade. Now again in France, I resolved to see the 
Delacours first of all. Thus it was that James 
Hopkins and I boarded the little train on the branch 
line that took us out to the old town of Us. Arriv- 
ing, we were met with the big automobile that seems 
characteristic of advanced agriculture in many parts 
of the world, and dashed us to the farm, through 
quaint villages and past sunny meadows. We went 
straightway to see the flock of Dishley-Merino sheep 
for which Gouzangrez is famous. Out in the stub- 
ble-fields they were in care of the old shepherd, with 
his two dogs, a young one that he was training and 
kept close to him with a string, and an old Beauce 
dog that loved to work and did it willingly. It is 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 503 

no less than marvelous what the shepherds aiid dogs 
of France do with sheep. For instance, the shep- 
herd will walk through the alfalfa, telling the dog 
that the sheep may come thus far and no farther — 
the dog will patrol that line and not permit a sheep 
to step beyond it, thus making them eat the alfalfa 
clean as they go. The dogs seem to be absolutely 
tireless, always going up and down the line and 
never barking. If a sheep is unusually rebellious 
they give it a gentle nip as a warning to be good. 
The shepherd often carries a chair with him and 
sits out on the plain, or stands and watches his 
feeding flock. Oh the stubble-fields they moved 
slowly forward, picking up the fallen heads, the lit- 
tle weeds and the blades of grass. 

Not far away were iron hurdles enclosing a lit- 
tle yard, where the flock stayed at night; the yard 
was moved once or twice a day to give the sheep 
clean lying ground and also constantly to enrich a 
fresh spot of earth. Near by was a little house on 
wheels, so small that the shepherd could himself 
move it. It was really only his bed in a big box. He 
slept out there with his sheep and his dogs were 
chained under the bed. When the sheep are on 
especially rich land, they may be changed again at 
midnight. 

AMONG DISHLEY MERINO FLOCKS. 

I had in my memory that Grouzangrez carried 
about 2,000 sheep and yet often my mind had been 
troubled, for I said, "I must remember incorrect- 



504 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

ly; it is impossible to keep so many sheep as that 
on a farm and keep them in health," but when I 
asked, I learned that I was right; that for many 
years there were here 2,000 sheep, more or less, de- 
pending on the season, for they sell lambs fat to the 
butchers, and sell rams as well. Not a trace of dis- 
ease could I detect in the flock, due no doubt to the 
fact that there was no fence on the farm and no 
permanent grass; the sheep shifted constantly. 

These Dishleys are wonderful sheep, too. They 
are nearly as good in form as Leicesters ; perhaps I 
should say that they are fully as good. They are 
smaller in size, which is a good thing for the mar- 
ket at this time, and have a delightful cross-bred 
wool that sells for a high price. They shear about 
eleven pounds of wool per head in well-bred flocks. 
The lambs grow fast and fatten early. Fernand 
Delacour told me that he averaged about $9 each 
for his fat lambs when they were six months or a 
little more of age. I saw afterward many flocks of 
them in France, and was told that the breed stead- 
ily spreads and displaces other breeds. The Dish- 
ley-Merino is made by fusing the bloods of - the 
Merino and the Leicester. In America we have 
thought that no permanent fusion with Merino could 
be done, but these men prove that it is possible, 
and that the result is good indeed. I was told that 
about 25 per cent of Merino blood is in the sheep, 
though some breeders claimed to have as much as 
40 per cent. From appearance I doubt their having 
so much as that. 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 



505 



When the shepherd wished to move them he said 
something in a low tone to his dogs, which at once 
quietly yet quickly put the sheep together. The 
shepherd walked on ahead and the flock followed 
at his heels, perhaps all around him, seeming to 
have no fear of either him or the dogs and yet 
giving unquestioned obedience. 




A SOISSONAIS MERINO RAM. 



The sheep were but one feature of the life and 
activities of the farm. There were many yokes of 
magnificent red oxen busily cultivating the wheat 
and oat stubble to make a seed-bed for the fallen 
grain and for all the weeds and grasses which would 
come up and make the land green. Sometimes they 



506 



IN FOREIGN FIELDS 



also sow red clover or other seeds on the stubbles at 
the time of this cultivation — a catch crop, as it were. 
The red oxen, of the race of Auvernat, were much 
like large Devons; they buy them when four years 
old, work them for three years and sell them fat 
in Paris. They cost about $150 each to buy and sell 




FRENCH SHEPHERD, SHEEP DOGS AND FLOCK OF DISHLEY MERINOS. 

for $170 to $180 each. Oxen do not sell as well as 
do steers, but they do so much labor that they are 
profitable. They work them usually in fours. 

In another field the fertilizer distributer was go- 
ing, putting on basic slag at the rate of a little less 
than 1,000 pounds per acre. It is applied once in 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 



507 



four years. They also used great amounts of plas- 
ter or gypsum on the manure heaps, and bonemeal 
in large amounts on the beet-fields, about 500 pounds 
per acre, and for the beets nitrate of soda, about 
250 pounds per acre in several applications. All 
stable and yard manures are religiously saved and 
applied: 

What is the result? In the drouth year of 1911 
they got forty bushels of wheat and oats to the acre. 
The beets were hurt by drouth and the maize was 
also damaged as it was planted late and thick, to 
be cut green for cows. 

The farm has 1,050 acres. It carries 2,000 sheep, 
sixty oxen, fifteen Normandy cows and twenty 
horses. It sells an enormous amount of grain. It 
sells fuel alcohol, distilled from the beets grown on 
the land. The land is worth, says M. Delacour, 
about $240 per acre. That is not saying that one 
could buy such land, with such equipment, for that 
price, but occasionally similar land sells for that 
price. The land, then, is worth, say $252,000, and 
M. Delacour tells me that one can make 10 per cent 
on this investment, if the land is properly farmed. 
He uses the sixty oxen and twenty horses on the 
land. He plows twenty inches deep once in the ro- 
tation, when he is ready to sow alfalfa. He limes 
the land thoroughly with unburned limestone or 
chalk, which he digs from his own farms and ap- 
plies in large amounts. The more lime the better 
and more lasting his alfalfa and the sainfoin, which 
he sows with it. He employs all the year around 



508 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

forty laborers and at harvest time seventy men and 
fifteen women. These laborers work ten hours daily 
and live in cottages furnished them in the village of 
old stone cottages around the walls of the old cha- 
teau. He pays his shepherd $25 a month and extras 
for lambs raised and rams sold, his plowmen $21 to 
$22 per month with cottages. His labor bill must 
in the aggregate be enormous, yet the marvelous 
fertility that he and his fathers have accumulated 
pays all, feeds all and supports the Delacours in a 
beautiful way of living. 

An electric thresher was threshing out the wheat 
and binding the straw into straight bundles again; 
wherever good machines would serve a useful pur- 
pose they had been installed; they were always 
housed in fine stone-built buildings. Everything 
was done so well that it would endure for hundreds 
of years. Naturally the Delacours inherit values 
that were achieved by their grandsires, and what 
they add is so well done that it will be used by their 
great-grandchildren. 

A BEAUTIFUL FRENCH GARDEN. 

French people are almost cruelly practical, yet 
they have an innate love of beauty, too. There is 
always the walled garden. What a happy lot to be 
a child within the sheltering walls of an old French 
garden. There will be found there paths, beds of 
vegetables, borders of blooming things, and on the 
walls trained pear trees, grapes, figs, cherries, and 
apples. A kind old gardener putters around with 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 



509 




510 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

his spade, wheelbarrow and watering pot, always 
ready, I hope, to give a child a little ride on the 
wheelbarrow or pluck for it a red rose or a ripe 
peach. The garden of Gouzangrez is charming, a 
little larger than common, a little better planted 
and a little more fruitful, but it has in it arbors and 
sheltered bowers where children play. 

What Gouzangrez lacks is a forest. All the land 
is rich and tilled, so there could be no forested land 
reserved. However, some wise old ancestor had 
laid down about five acres to forest, right at the 
home place, adjoining the garden. What a dense bit 
of planting that is, with its oak, beech, hazel and 
whatever cares to come in of itself and grow wild. 
Two straight walks lead through the bit of copse- 
like forest, one in each direction. These walks are 
veritable leafy tunnels, kept neatly trimmed, very 
green, shady, cool, moist, and quiet, and are good 
and healing to the tired soul. One enters from a 
doorway in the garden and follows the walk to the 
beginning of a field. There are wild birds, rabbits 
and flowers in the wood. Each year a portion of 
it is cut down close to the ground, and every twig 
is saved for fuel for the farm houses of the Dela- 
cours. Some sticks are large enough to be saved 
for use on the farm. Afterward it is allowed to 
sprout and grow up again, which it does very rap- 
idly. The little wood was all alive with wild rab- 
bits, doing some damage to the young sprouting 
trees, so M. Delacour decided to come along in the 
evening with his gun and thin them out somewhat. 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 511 

Why, I wonder, could we not have such a bit of 
woodland against the garden gate of every farm in 
America 1 

How I should like to have time to go there and 
stay for some months, to study the life of the farm 
and its fields, the story of the flocks and the herd, 
the lives, too, of the kind peasant folk who live 
there. Wheat, oats and alfalfa to lay for several 
years, with some fields devoted to beets — that is 
the rotation at Grouzangrez. Labor costs steadily 
advance ; in the past ten years wages have increased 
7 per cent. 

The ewes lamb in December and January, and 
commonly the lambs are sold fat at about eight 
months of age, bringing often $9 each. For some 
years prices for fat lambs have steadily increased. 
The shepherds shear the sheep, an average fleece 
being eleven pounds and worth eighteen cents per 
pound in its natural condition. The wool is of a 
cross-bred type that goes to make men's clothing. 
M. Delacour has had as much as twenty-two cents 
for the wool ; it has declined in recent years. Sheep, 
he thinks, would pay even not considering them as 
soil-builders; in their dual capacity they pay large- 
ly. In the winter they receive alfalfa hay, with 
oats, "cake" and maize grain. However, when not 
suckling lambs, they get little but alfalfa hay and 
bright straw- 

M. Delacour said that in his part of France in- 
telligent farmers made ten per cent on the valuation 
of their lands, but despite this, land values de- 



512 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

creased steadily because of the agitation for an in- 
come tax that would, it was feared, fall heavily on 
the large land-owners. Very little land ever changed 
hands, however, and the failure of a farmer was a 
thing almost unknown. I was interested to know 
that the Delacours occasionally use on their flock 
large Merino rams of the type called Soissonais. 
These are very large, smooth-bodied Merinos, with 
little oil in their fleeces; but they have a decided 
tendency to lay on fat. These sheep are common 
in the Department of Aisne; they should be intro- 
duced into America, where they would infuse into 
our Merinos the ability to fatten without appreci- 
ably taking away other desirable qualities. 

Everywhere, excepting perhaps in England, 
there is the same cry, " Scarcity of labor," and M. 
Delacour finds labor for his farm so scarce that 
he must employ Belgians for beet culture and har- 
vest. He had 275 acres in beets, which go to his own 
distillery to make crude fuel alcohol, the pulp being 
put into silos and fed to animals. His electric 
thresher has a capacity of nearly 300 bushels per 
hour; it also binds the straw into straight bundles. 

Other farmers nearby make it a practice to buy 
old ewes, take from them one crop of lambs and 
then fatten both ewes and lambs and sell them 
in Paris. Such ewes would get linseed cake, oats 
and straw. His own ewes get also beet pulp, but 
the lambs get the beets, cut in slices. The farmers 
use land plaster on the manure heaps, to trap and 
hold ammonia. On this farm sainfoin is always 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 513 

sown mixed with the alfalfa, and the two grow to- 
gether very well indeed. 

We said our ' ' adieus ' ' to the good Delacours and 
returned to Paris on an incredibly slow train, among 
the country people, happy as children, for we had 
done a good day's work, Emerson said: "A man 
is relieved and gay when he has put his heart into 
his work and done his best, but whatsoever he may 
have done otherwise will bring him no joy." Well, 
we had seen a glorious farm again; I had pumped 
poor M. Delacour with interminable questions un- 
til I had a lot of facts about it. Thus we sleepily 
came down through the warm darkness to gay Paris 
again. Next we decided that it was best to visit 
the Beauce country, a rich plain below Paris where 
there are more sheep than elsewhere in France. 
The fascination of the flock and the fertility that it 
brings cast a spell over me — I could not see too 
many of them. 

It was very hot, as hot as in the cornbelt, and 
as dry as it is in California. All France was burned 
yellow and bare and fires ran riot in fields and for- 
est. I had always before seen the land when it 
was green and dripping with moisture ; it was with 
wonder that I realized that there could be such a 
hot and yellow France. 

A GREAT FRENCH PLAIN. 

The region called La Beauce is a great plain 
southwest of Paris, reaching to La Perche. I had 
visited it once before when I went to see that great 



514 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

breeder of Kambouillet sheep, M. Thirouin-Soreau, 
and at that time I had been impressed with its won- 
derful fertility, and had wished to see it again. To 
do this was easy; I dropped a line to M. Thirouin 
and the next day, as of old, his son came to me in 
my hotel in Paris to tell me how glad they would be 
to receive me. He was a big, straight, muscular 
man, with the glow of perfect health and nature's 
fine coloring in his face, and the clear eyes of the 
temperate, right-living man. He met us at the lit- 
tle station of Anneau, driving a big fine half-Perch- 
eron and half Demi-sang. We rode in one of the 
great carts that farmers use in Franc. They would 
be serviceable in America. They are strong enough 
to carry half a ton or more and easy to ride in, with 
high strong wheels that enable one to look over the 
landscape nicely and to go anywhere over the fields 
as well. We drove over the fine country roads and 
through unfenced fields, for the Beauce is a pas- 
tureless region, unfenced, treeless, unhedged and 
unwalled, past little farming villages till we reached 
Cherville, the farm village of the Thirouin-Soreaus, 
and went through the well remembered old archway 
to the farmyard. Only one thing was changed: the 
old chateau that had been half in ruins for centuries 
was being made habitable, newly roofed and newly 
floored, and provided with baths, gaslights and fine 
new windows. It was evident that farming in that 
part of France had paid well, as the elaborate proc- 
ess of making the chateau habitable must have 
cost a lot of money. 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 



515 




ENTRANCE TO THIROUTN-SOREAU'S, FRANCE— T\rR . WTXO TN THE RACK- 
GROUND. 



516 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

RAMBOUILLET SHEEP. 

"Where are the sheep!" was my eager inquiry. 
They were afield, I was told, and so straightway we 
went out to see, through the leafy lane that I re- 
membered well. There in the wheat stubble they 
were, some 400 of them, grazing the scatterings 
and nipping weeds and grasses; the shepherd was 
on one side with a dog; two Brie dogs on' the oppo- 
site side were patroling a straight line across which 
they would not permit a sheep to stray. I stood 
long silent and watched the scene. The dogs were 
well trained, with the heredity that made such 
training possible. Their humanlike intelligence, the 
shepherd a part of the landscape, the sheep obedient, 
coming slowly, steadily toward us, and the wide 
plain at my feet that stretched to the horizon, al- 
most treeless, all spoke of antiquity of effort and 
thought on the part of man. The sheep steadily 
approached me. Now I could see clearly their 
character, the well-known character of the Thirouin 
Rambouillets — good bodies, the collars about their 
necks and their evenness and trueness to type. Many 
men breed good Rambouillet sheep, but none quite 
like M. Thirouin-Soreau. The blood of his flocks 
is in every land where good Rambouillets are bred; 
it is notorious that his sheep are better today than 
those of the government farm at Rambouillet itself. 

Now and again one of the dogs would come run- 
ning to me to put his nose against my hand. Tak- 
ing up his endless patrol, he was eager, did not 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 517 

bark nor clash at a sheep; he let them feed within 
four feet of the alfalfa edge yet restrained them 
from trespassing on it. Now and then he lifted his 
head high to listen for the low spoken counsels of 
the shepherd across the flock. 

We went to the house to luncheon. M. Thirouin 
said that times had not been good for Eambouillet 
sheep breeders because of the closing of Argentine 
ports, but really perhaps because of the dominance 
of the Lincoln in Argentina, and because of hard 
times among American flockmasters. 

Eambouillets are not now extensively bred in 
France. His flock has been in the family since 1785. 
It seems to him a duty to keep it going and to breed 
it well. His wife and children are equally inter- 
ested ; it is more than money that makes these peo- 
ple breed Eambouillets. All their neighbors breed 
Dishleys instead of Eambouillets. He said that re- 
cently lambs had sold very dear and as a result 
farmers had sold off their ewe lambs. I told him 
that at home men bought when sheep were dear and 
sold -when they were cheap. He said that farming 
was not so profitable as it was fifty years ago, 
though now men produced more, due to better tools 
and more fertilizers, but that labor was much less 
efficient and dearer. He showed us old Beauce plows 
with wooden wheels and frames, and said that there 
were no better . plows ; that when he was young he 
would run one all day and only touch it occasionally 
with his hand. It balanced perfectly. Nowadays 
the men could not adjust such plows, so he bought 



518 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

simpler ones, not so good, but easier to adjust by 
a man of limited intelligence and skill. 

FARMING IN LA BEAUCE. 

The Beauce is a wheat, oat and barley growing 
region, with much alfalfa as well. It had been M. 
Thirouin's practice to lime his land with the soft, 
unburned limestone or chalk, once in twenty years, 
using perhaps twenty tons to the acre. He thought 
that more frequent applications would be better. 
His alfalfa thrives best on land recently limed. His 
rotation is alfalfa, plowed for wheat or oats or pos- 
sibly for a small area of beets or potatoes; then 
oats or wheat again; then alfalfa to stand for sev- 
eral years, sowing sainfoin with the alfalfa. It is 
not a natural grass soil. Along the roadsides one 
does not see the thick mats of bluegrass that one is 
used to seeing in the cornbelt; in fact, one sees no 
bluegrass at all. Labor, said M. Thirouin, drew 
wages every week, whereas once the men would hire 
for four or eight months and draw nothing till the 
end of that term. He paid $20 per month with 
board. His shepherd receives $200 per year and 
his board and some extras. M. Thirouin's farm 
contains 500 acres ; that is a large farm for France, 
though there are many large farms on the Beauce. 
It is worth $192 per acre, more or less. The build- 
ings would cost that to build new, but some of them 
are 700 years old and yet serviceable. He uses 
twelve laborers the year around and six more at 
harvest. Practically all of his land is under culti- 



TRAYKI, SKKTC1IKS I'.V ,)()S. K. YYINO 



519 




520 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

vation. There are no fenced pastures and no woods. 
Occasionally he uses red clover in his rotation; it 
comes in between the sowings of alfalfa, and is 
often turned under. He plows eight to nine inches 
deep, and uses more than 500 pounds of phosphatic 
fertilizers per acre. He uses also nitrate of soda 
and sulphate of soda on beets and wheat. The 
yield of wheat is more than thirty-five bushels. 

M. Thirouin has most of his lambs born in the 
fall. He feeds the ewes beets to make them milk 
well; he pushes the lambs with oats after weaning 
and then they get what bran they will eat. In 1911 
his wool sold for 18 1-5 cents per pound. He has 
had a higher price than that. His grandfather sold 
wool for double that price, or 5 francs the kilo. One 
kilo (2.2 pounds) of his wool spun a yarn 77,000 
meters long. His fat lambs bring from $8 to $10 
each. His land tax is about $1.60 an acre, and his 
other taxes considerable. Yet it is evident that he 
is prospering. He said that there was not much 
land changing hands in his neighborhood, ancLsuch 
a thing as a farmer failing was almost unknown. 
Farmers work, save, live to a ripe old age, and do 
not overwork as they go. He took us driving over 
the Beauce. It was a most interesting ride. We 
passed many little plots where peasant proprietors 
owned as little as one-half an acre. Some had 
plowed their little narrow land up in high, rounded 
ridges. "Why is that done? Is the land wet?" I 
asked. He laughed. "No, that is the sign of a bad 
neighbor — a man who hopes to steal, when plowing, 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 521 

a little of your earth and turn it always toward the 
middle. You can be sure that is what it means when 
you see land farmed in that manner." Some of his 
neighbors were leisurely threshing with horsepower 
threshers, treadmill affairs, which were very slow. 
The attendants were not half busy. It was a waste- 
ful way, I suggested, and he agreed. Then he told 
of the Credit Agricole which lends money to farm- 
ers. Men form an association or stock company 
and pay in not less than $4 each. For each franc 
put in a man can again borrow twenty. He pays 
interest at varying rates, usually 3 1-2 to 4 per cent. 
The source of this money is, in part, the farmers 
themselves; they deposit and get interest at the 
rate of 3 per cent. If they have calls for more 
money than they have, the association gets a loan 
from the Bank of France, without interest, and re- 
lends to farmers at rates not exceeding 4 per cent. 
It seems like a fairy tale, but it is true, and it is 
working wonders in. parts of France, giving farm- 
ers capital to do things well. He had never heard 
of a man failing to repay the money he had bor- 
rowed. While it usually is borrowed for six months 
or a year, it may be repaid at any time. The Bank 
of France is obliged by the 'government to lend this 
money in return for some other concessions. 

A FARM CREDIT SOCIETY. 

The Credit Agricole was started fifteen years 
ago for the purpose of helping the poorer farmers, 
but they at first neglected to use its opportunities. 



522 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

They feared that should they borrow money their 
credit would he impaired. The way they get the 
money is this : the would-be borrower must have a 
little money; this he deposits with the Credit Agri- 
cole, taking stock in it. For this deposit he gets 
three per cent interest. He then makes a written 
application for what he desires, which may be twen- 
ty times what he has deposited. This written ap- 
plication states the amount and purpose of the de- 
sired loan, together with facts about the existing 
debts -of the borrower. It is secretly examined by 
a committee of eight men. If they find the man in- 
dustrious and with fair hopes of succeeding in his 
enterprise, whatever it may be, they grant him the 
money. Men were slow to take out funds because 
they were afraid of injuring their credit, so Albert 
Eoyneau and other rich men began borrowing 
money and telling of it publicly, just to encourage 
the timid; then they followed suit, and all went 
well. The fact is there seems greater kindness, one 
man toward another, in this land than we usually 
see in America. 

We visited a "model farm" of 475 acres where 
the new buildings had cost $120,000. They were 
good buildings, fairly well adapted to their uses, 
yet as the place carried but 600 sheep, it was clear 
that no dividends could be paid — at least not from 
the live stock end of it. 

We went the next morning to Illiers to sec its 
worthy mayor, M. Chapet, and his magnificent farm, 
Le Hayes. Here we saw wonderful Dishlevs. Le 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 523 

Hayes is a little farm of 300 acres, carrying 400 
sheep, managed in the nnfenced fields by the aid of 
the shepherd and the dogs. M. Chapet had moved 
to town and left the farm to his son, building him 
a good new honse, which had cost $12,000. As many 
of his farm buildings were nearly new, I learned 
that they would cost about $30,000, though in 
America they would cost much more. ' ' There is but 
one obstacle to agricultural happiness in this part 
of France," said M. Ohapet; "it is the labor prob- 
lem. It is increasingly difficult to get men enough, 
and to get good men. The bicycle takes men to 
.the towns as soon as their work is done ; they go 
to the cafes and drinking places, and it is not as it 
was in the olden clays." When told of our freedom 
from drinking places, he heaved a sigh and wished 
it were so with him. M. Chapet breeds a fine type 
indeed of Dishley sheep, and wins many prizes at 
the shows. ,. We dined with the worthy mayor, and, 
after seeing his marvelous garden in town, went 
with Albert Eoyneau in a fine automobile to his farm 
at Olle, near Bailliau. All this is in the department 
of Eure et Loire, near La Perche. M. Eoyneau keeps 
on his 425 acres about 800 sheep, besides fourteen 
working horses.. Of course they are in the fields: 
they also are superb Dishleys. His ewe flock shears 
nine pounds. He received twenty cents for his wool, 
because he had kept his sheep nights in the barn, 
and there was no clay on the wool. He sometimes 
lets rams for $25 each for a six weeks' season to 
farmers in the neighborhood. He is making plen- 



524 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

ty of money. But lie buys each year in order to 
maintain the extraordinary fertility of his farm 
fifty-five tons of superphosphate and thirty-three 
tons of kainit. This year (1911), he had forty-nine 
and one-third bushels of wheat per acre. As the 
result of feeding the land, and of the use of alfalfa, 
he says for the past ten years good farmers have 
made plenty of money. 

Each man whom we visited took us to see his 
walled garden. The walls are about ten feet high, 
thus sheltering it from wind and making the season 
longer. These gardens are bowers of beauty, 
planted with rare trees, shrubs and flowers, and 
often with little artificial lakelets or canals or foun- 
tains in them. Fruits are trained on the walls and 
vegetables grow in their places. The Beauce is so 
level that it needs hills, so these men make them, in 
their gardens. M. Albert Royneau took us up a 
winding pathway to the summit of a little hill that 
seemed quite natural; at the crest we found our- 
selves at the level of the top of the wall right at the 
corner, and there was a shady nook with chairs 
whence one could look afar over the wondrous plain. 

Nearly every farm had its rabbit hutches. These 
are usually built of brick or concrete; the little 
cubical rooms three by three feet and maybe 
two feet high, put in rows and perhaps two or three 
tiers high. They take little space, thus placed, in 
the barn or near the dwelling. Each little room has 
its grated door of metal, and in each room is a rab- 
bit, or a pair, or a mother with ten babies. No yards 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 525 

are required for exercise. The men feed tliem al- 
falfa, green or dry, cabbage leaves and all sorts of 
odds and ends. It is no rabbit craze, it is simply a 
business-like way of growing a lot of food for the 
table, and doing it very cheaply. Our farm boys 
could raise rabbits, thus managed, with an hour's 
attention a day for 100 of them. 

THE USE OF CHALK. 

I am certain that the Beauce has not what would 
in the United States be considered a very fer- 
tile soil. The small stones in it are of flint. Chalk 
underlies it, but sometimes it is deep down. Many 
years ago they mined the chalk out from under fifty 
feet of earth, as they would mine coal, to put on the 
land. Now some of them have ceased to lime their 
land at all. The result is their alfalfa does not last 
long. Others still use chalk and have better results. 
Perhaps I should say that most of them still use 
chalk ; one sees it in great heaps ready to lay on, or 
the land white with it where applied. Albert Roy- 
neau asked me if I knew why they did not raise 
Percherons, as was done near by, and then told me 
that it was because in La Perche there was much 
more lime and phosphorus in the soil. These ma- 
terials entering the grass roots, build the bones and 
muscles of the colts for America. He feeds his small 
pastures, and raises Percherons for America; he 
applies basic slag in large amounts (getting lime 
and phosphorus thereby). He also feeds the colts 
and his lambs calcined bone (burned bones). Why 



526 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

did we never think of that? Burned bones are cheap, 
easily had and absolutely safe, as there can be no 
danger of communicating any infection from them. 
One can get them at a butcher's and easily burn 
them to whiteness. Nothing is lost but the nitrogen, 
which is of no use to the animal, and the fat, the 
lime and phosphorus remain and are more soluble 
than ever. He adds salt to the burned bone, which he 
pulverizes. This hint may be worth my trip to 
France. Henry Dudding used to lime his pastures, 
and he saw betterment in the lambs' bones. 

I took especial pains to inquire of each man as 
to his neighbors — how they were thriving and so 
on. Never did I hear a disparaging word said, un- 
less possibly it might be remarked that they did not 
keep any books and so did not know actually what 
it cost them to do this or the other thing. 

A VISIT TO GERMANY. 

In Paris I could get no definite information as 
to where in Germany to go to find what I was. seek- 
ing, so, trusting to luck, I set out for the Rhine, 
where I knew Bolton Smith, a loyal American in- 
terested in all forms of agriculture. The pictures 
that remain in my mind of that rapid flight through 
France to Metz and Coblentz are of a parched land 
of yellow or brown. fields; for it was the year of 
the great drouth. I saw hillsides with little farms 
running far up the slopes and patches of land be- 
longing to peasants; cool depths of forests on hill- 
tops; interesting old towns here and there; cool, 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 



527 



calm lengths of winding canals, busy with boats. 
Coblentz I reached after nightfall, so I had really 
not seen any of Germany excepting glimpses about 
Metz. 

In the morning when I awoke in my hotel at 
Coblentz it was with that feeling of happiness that 
comes to children, for was I not in Germany? "Was 
I not near dear friends? What happy adventures 
might not happen the day? 

Coblentz is such a city as I had never seen be- 
fore. There were new buildings of concrete or ce- 
ment plaster, with new and pleasing lines of archi- 
tecture, gay tiled roofs and bright windows ; at the 
windows were flowers — flowers in boxes, all red and 
gay. There were clean bright streets and trees 
along them. I ate a hasty breakfast. My room, a 
uice one, had cost seventy-five cents and my break- 
fast twenty-five cents. Tips of ten cents each made 
the servants my sincere friends. 

The Ehine flows by Coblentz, and there are rail- 
ways on either bank with flying trains. I was whirled 
up the valley to Boppard, the village where a friend 
of mine was staying. Before he had his breakfast 
I was at his delightful little hotel, which was en- 
shrined in trees and flowers and cool lawns and sum- 
merhouses, the Rhine in front and a mountain be- 
hind. It is a joy to one to meet an old friend in a 
strange land. After chatting with Mr. Smith and his 
family a while, I proposed to him this: "I seek only 
to drag you out to farms, to explore regions where 
there may be sheep. In all your automobiling in 



528 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

Germany, where have you seen the most sheep! Tell 
me, can you come with me to talk for me with the 
farmers'?" Unhappily he could not; he was soon 
sailing for New York, and he had nowhere in Ger- 
many seen many sheep. I must go to Berlin and 
learn from the government where to go. I could 
not, he said, go to Berlin from his village ; I must 
take a steamer to Cologne; there I would get a 
through train. 

THE RIVEE RHINE. 

We walked along the Rhine and up a little side 
valley on a public footpath that led us under trees, 
and gradually climbed higher until at last it came 
out into the vineyards. The sides of the mountains 
were planted to grapes, trained up on stakes and 
standing as thick as they could stand. We followed 
on up through the rows of grapes. How nicely they 
were cultivated ; there was not a weed or a blade of 
grass between the vines. They stood on land so 
steep that no horse could be worked there ; the vines 
were too close-set for horses anyway. All the labor 
is done by hand, even to carrying up manure and 
sometimes soil in baskets. The vines had small 
leaves and small, white grapes, which perhaps made 
"Rhine wine." Workmen were digging among the 
vines, or training them up to stakes. We were 
doubtless trespassing, and soon we could see them 
ceasing work and staring at us in wonderment; in 
fact, the entire neighborhood was spellbound by the 
audacity of the trespassing strangers. I have no 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 529 

idea how near we came to being jailed for trespass, 
but at last we emerged from the vines to a moun- 
taintop through a fringe of tiny oaks and found on 
the level cherry trees and little grain fields, all har- 
vested. Below the lovely winding valley of the 
Rhine were the old village and the very busy river 
with its endless fleets of barges, its great raft's of 
pine logs or its swift, gay little passenger steamers. 
Afar off in the distance were great cool-looking pine 
forests. It was evident that this was no land of 
farms or sheep. 

We took a steamer and went down from Bingen 
to Cologne, taking nearly a day for the journey, 
and a restful day it was. We have no river like the 
Rhine. It seems most artificial ; in fact, much wealth 
has been spent taking out its obstructions. They 
were still planing off the rocks of its bottom to make 
it flow as smoothly as water in a concrete horse 
trough. It is fed by mighty snow-clad mountains, 
so that it never gets too low for boats. In the day's 
ride I suppose we passed at least 500 boats and 
barges. Almost a continuous village stretches along 
the Rhine. In the villages live the women and men 
who work with the vines. The little cities are all 
quaint and picturesque, with their countless thou- 
sands of window boxes of bright geraniums and pe- 
tunias, and everywhere were happy children. We 
passed steamer after steamer laden with people; 
always dozens of handkerchiefs were waving, and 
always on boat and ashore happy folk sought to in- 
crease our happiness by their smiles and salutations. 



530 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

Old, damaged, worm and moth-eaten castles stood 
grim on giddy heights overlooking the Rhine. There 
also were rejuvenated castles and fine, modern cas- 
tles with electric -lights and bathrooms. There was 
a castle on every crag and on every mountaintop. 
What a fashion there was for castles in the old days 
along the Rhine. Many of them were inhabited by 
robber barons who exacted toll from each passing 
boat that ventured up or down the Rhine. Others 
were for defense against possible marauders who 
might seek the convenient passage of the Rhine. 
They say that a man would not dare live in the coun- 
try unless he belonged to some lord who owned a 
castle and who in turn oppressed and protected him. 
Castles, legends, Lorelei and mermaids abounded 
and still abound along the Rhine. Men are still build- 
ing castles. One architect and builder does nothing 
else. He has a regular scale of prices, running 
about like this : For a modern castle, in good re- 
pair, steam-heated, $50,000, depending of course on 
its size and equipment; for a castle built in 1700, 
mossy and weatherworn, a half more; for a castle 
of the 1600 's, with dungeons, drawbridge, keep, and 
ancient armor, partly in ruins, double that price; 
for a castle of uncertain age, going back into legen- 
dary times, half in very ancient, mossy ruins, half re- 
stored, with moat, portcullis, donjon, an echo, private 
chapel (in half ruins), three legends in good order, 
armorial bearings, ancient lights and manorial 
rights, with choice of ghost, mermaid or Lorelei, the 
price is a matter of arrangement, depending some- 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 531 

what on where it is to be placed, but ranging from 
$200,000 to $1,000,000. 

The Ehine emerged from its encircling moun- 
tains into a rich farming region, and I saw one 
small flock of sheep — the one flock that I saw along 
the Rhine. We reached Cologne, magnificent in 
cathedrals, and an interesting old city, evincing 
plenty of modern spirit. There I said a reluctant 
good-bye to my friends and took the night train for 
Berlin. That night I had the upper berth shelf 
and my good German neighbor below locked the 
door and saw that the window was tightly closed. 
I survived. I came out early to breathe; we were 
in a flat, poor, sandy region, given chiefly to pine 
forests. The Germans love trees, and there is no 
waste land ; if it is too poor for rye, they plant pines. 
In Berlin I fortunately found a man who would ac- 
company me and interpret, \& German-American, 
Richard Ewers. With him, I visited the Deutsche 
Landwirthschaft Gesellschaft (German Agricultural 
Society), and was there advised where to go. Sax- 
ony, they said, would interest most a man studying 
sheep. There were not many sheep in Germany — 
only 7,703,000. In 1860, there were four times as 
many. They told me that Germans do not care to 
eat mutton, and that the influence of Australia had 
blighted the wool-growing industry; that popula- 
tion increased and must be fed, so that grain-grow- 
ing paid better than sheep. With addresses of the 
principal men in Saxony, we set out. 

Saxony is a picturesque land of plain and rising 



532 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

slopes, and great rounded hills, forested on slopes 
and farmed again on summits, languid rivers, vil- 
lages, big towns, cities, close-set, with farms be- 
tween. "It is the most densely peopled region in 
the world," said Mr. Ewers, "if we except Belgium 
and China." On the edge of the pine forest of the 
sandy plain, in the early of the cool morning, lithe 
little red deer cropped the farmer's cabbage, al- 
though he had put out rows of small red flags to 
scare them away. The farmer must not shoot the 
deer unless they actually bite him and endanger his 
life. Little farms lay between dense pine forests; 
there were heathery slopes, all purple and new-set 
to young pines. Efficient fire guards were numer- 
ous. I saw wagons of our own sort, with tongues 
and hounds, fore and aft. Evidently the American 
wagon idea came from our German ancestors. Cows 
are sometimes used as draft animals; women work 
in the fields. Soldiers were seen in resplendent ar- 
ray and peasants without socks. Gorgeous big 
young men were in military uniforms and in splen- 
did leisure, disdaining worn and callous old wom- 
en whose labor in the fields makes the elegant leis- 
ure of the soldier possible. We saw a great barn 
in a farming village ; there were two threshing floors 
in the barn, each floor was covered with sheaves of 
bright, yellow rye; two men facing two women, all 
with flails, beat the sheaves tremendously and in 
perfect time and accord., Old as I am I had never 
seen this before, though my father had flails, care- 
fully preserved, when I was a boy. I should have 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 



533 



thought this process too costly in labor even for 
Germany. Near by stood a modern threshing ma- 
chine. Evidently human labor is still sometimes 
considered cheaper than steam. What splendid, pa- 
tient, heroic, cheerful, manly women ! 

A FARMYARD IN SAXONY. 

A farmyard (in Saxony) consists of a court of 
250 feet in diameter ; the yard is faced on each side 
by great buildings, the residence at the top, the 




ON THE KING'S FARM, SAXONY. 

stables at the sides. The stables are stone-built 
and tiled ; the courts are carefully paved with stone. 
The enormous tiled roofs have little windows like 
great eyes. In the dark, cool old sheds, sheep lie 
and cows stand at noontime, in clean straw. The 
women of the fields come down the road as the noon- 



534 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

time bell rings ; I note their calm, strong, confident 
march. They are unashamed and unafraid ; their 
bodies are so perfect in physique as to be a reproach 
even to many American men. A farm lass washes 
her feet in the watering trough. Women help vigor- 
ously to load carts with m'anure ; a man superintends 
and aids a little. For their labor they receive twenty- 
five to forty cents a day, with food. Men are far 
better paid, they get as much as $75 by the year, 
with food, and for harvest time or for shorter spells 
as much as sixty-four cents per day. Many of the 
laborers are Poles; labor is scarce in Germany. It 
costs a great deal more than it did twenty years 
ago and does not work so well. I have heard that 
song sung in all lands since my early childhood. 
Merino sheep of the Saxony Electoral type were 
rather inferior sometimes in size and conformation, 
but they had fleeces of fine Merino wool. The mead- 
ows were burned crisp. They did not have the fine, 
fat sheep I saw in France. The sheep were the re- 
mains of what once was on every farm and is now 
so rarely seen in Saxony : the old Merinos. They 
were retained because of the blueness of their blood 
and because there still exists some demand for the 
sheep for stud purposes in Australia, Africa or 
South America and in other parts of Germany. 

I saw a splendid farm of 450 acres. Here is the 
census of this farm, near Pirna, which is not far 
from Dresden. 450 acres ; 650 to 700 sheep ; 130 cat- 
tle, of all ages ; ten men the year around ; 
twenty-six men from March till December: six to 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 



535 




A GERMAN BARN-YARD. 




THRESHER-WOMEN WITH FLAILS, GERMANY. 



536 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

ten women. The man pays a cash rental of $3,750 
for the land. His taxes and labor cost him about 
$8,385. He uses a four-year rotation • of clover, 
wheat, oats or barley and clover, with potatoes oc- 
casionally thrown in. He uses all the manures he 
can and much commercial fertilizer and grows fifty 
bushels of wheat to the acre. He could make money 
—if "my labor did not cost too much." 

Germany is a fine land, with clean, bright cities, 
lovely parks, kindly people, many children, most of 
them carrying knapsacks on their backs and in the 
knapsacks were schoolbooks, bread and sausages. 
Germany has an air of youth and of growth that 
one does not see in France or in England. I like 
Germany. Ever after this when I see the sign on 
an article "made in Germany," it will have for me 
a new meaning. I will remember the thousands of 
little manufacturing villages out in the fields, the 
absence of slums, the sky-piercing slender smoke- 
stacks that never smoke much, yet that make things 
hum just the same. I guess it is a good thing that 
so much of our genius and inspiration came, like 
our idea of wagon-building, from Germany. 

THE GERMAN CHARACTER. 

Obedience is the keynote of German character. It 
is begun in the little children. It is maintained by 
the family life at home ; it is furthered by the com- 
pulsory military training that every boy must have. 
Not that the German is a whining weakling; he is 
the reverse — big and stout and often full of con- 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 



537 



ceit, but he has learned from early childhood to obey 
where obedience is due. It all makes for the strength 
of the nation. One day in Berlin Richard Ewers 
took me to see a new part of the city (although all 
of Berlin is seemingly newer than onr American 




A SHEPHERD AND SAXONY MERINO FLOCK OF IIERR OTTO OADEGAST. 

cities, certainly more beautifully built), and we 
reached at last some rows of concrete houses. I 
recall that they were of beautiful architecture ; that 
each floor had its window boxes in concrete and 
that these were gay with flowers. The street was 
wide, and as clean as possible. "There, Mr. Wing/ 



538 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

how would you like to live in one of these houses?" 
asked my friend. "Oh, well enough," I replied, 
"but they would not be in my class; these must be 
for the very rich." "On the contrary," he replied, 
"every house in this street is occupied by laboring 
men; these are model tenements." I was impressed, 
but the impression was deepened later. We vis- 
ited the gardens where laboring men plant things. 
A tract of land of perhaps forty or eighty acres 
is divided into little squares, perhaps fifty feet or 
larger, and each one is the garden of some family. 
Little streets or alleys separate the gardens. Near- 
ly every garden is equipped with a small summer- 
house where the gardener may keep his tools, a 
table and a few stools. After the man has done a 
fair and honest day's work, he goes, not tired out, 
to his pleasant house; there his wife meets him at 
the door with a big basket, and the children. Then 
they all go out to the garden; there unlocking the 
door of the little house, they take out the hoes, rakes 
and pruning knives. They dig and train and prune ; 
they exclaim in sincere wonder at the growth 
of this plant or that flower; they dig a few 
potatoes, perhaps, or cull some flowers; then 
the table is brought out, and luncheon of bread 
and sausages and a bottle or two of beer is 
enjoyed. They sit there in the midst of their little 
garden, eat their very simple dinner, and then while 
the mother and two children do more things to the 
garden the father sits and smokes his big pipe as 
happy as a king. He is content; he does not go on 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 539 

a strike; his wages are low, it is true, but lie has 
so much enjoyment out of what he does earn that 
he is well off. 

The good house for the man, the clean, orderly, 
beautiful environment, the little parks for the chil- 
dren, the garden, the habit of contentment .with sim- 
ple, natural, wholesome pleasures — these are what 
make the German workman a good man. And these 
perhaps are at the foundation of the great differ- 
ence that exists between industrial Germany and 
industrial England. The fact is that Germany 
shows on her face a greater advance and prosperity 
along nearly all lines of human endeavor than any 
other country that I have seen, the United States 
not excepted. In fact, our towns and cities look 
dingy, old and cheap beside the new, orderly and 
beautiful towns and cities of Germany. 

A GERMAN FARM. 

One day my interpreter and I took a train for 
the province of Pommern, to visit Herr Ernest 
Schlange, Rittergut, who has a great farm at Schon- 
ningen, near Colbitzow. His fine carriage met us 
at the station ; the driver was in good livery. Pres- 
ently we were driving through a lane that led 
through the estate to the farmsteads and dwelling 
of Herr Schlange. It is a great place of 1,850 acres, 
some of it of rich soil. As we were going through 
a sandy part in the thin grass beside the fence, I 
saw something new and interesting to me — a wild- 
growing alfalfa with a yellow bloom, evidently the 



540 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

true "sand lucern" of which I had read; but the 
flowers were truly of a bright canary yellow. That 
alfalfa gave me a thought — there is certainly a 
strain that will endure cold, poor soil and lime de- 
ficiency and that will grow in the sand. Herr 
Schlange received us with cordial welcome. I re- 
member the enormous extent of roof, over feeding 
yards and barns for cows, sheep and horses. I 
know that I made a mental calculation and decided 
that there must be here at least two acres under 
roof. There is where we are so lacking in America ; 
we have not shelter enough for our animals and 
crops. Herr Schlange breeds a magnificent type of 
Soissonais Merino, and is one of the men with a 
creative brain. "I have not one that has not a bad 
fault, ' ' he said to us ; "I see always the fault when 
I look at an animal. '* 

Herr Schlange talked of the decline in sheep 
breeding in Germany. Naturally the opening up 
of Australia had much to do with it. He thought 
that a strong factor also was the growth of cities, 
which enhanced the value of dairy products. He 
was sure that, had men used his type of Merino, 
which was easily fattened, hardy and healthy, it 
would have given them encouragement to keep their 
flocks. Now the English Oxfords, Hampshires and 
other breeds are coming in use to breed for mutton. 
The government had recently cooperated with the 
farmers to sell their wool at auction, and that had 
materially improved prices. 

Pigs are greatly on the increase in Pommern, 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 



541 



said Herr Schlange, because prices are so good, due 
to the enormous growth of cities. Therefore the} 
keep many pigs on Schonningen. Live pigs were 
worth from 10 to 15 cents per pound. Land in the 
region was worth $200 up to $300 per acre for choice 
farms, with little being sold, of course. As we sat 
at dinner I questioned my host industriously as to 
labor conditions. I think he never before had so 




FARM-YARD SCENE IN SAXONY. 



many questions put to him in one day; in fact, now 
and then he half rebelled at answering, but at last 
good-naturedly he revealed nearly all. He has for 
his 1,850 acres about thirty-five men, largely Rus- 
sians and Austrians, who work the year around. In 
the summer he employs eighty men. He has the 
patriarchal system, of which he is very proud. To 



542 IN FOREIGN FIEIDS 

each man is given, if married, a piece of land, a 
cow and some money (just how much Herr Schlange 
forgot to tell me). A carter, unmarried, has, how- 
ever, lodging, a garden place, firewood and $60 to 
$70 per year. I was immensely interested to see on 
this place the mingling of the old and the new. 
For instance, he was using great steam plows the 
da}^ we were there, each gang drawn back and forth 
by two engines stationed at opposite sides of the 
field. He had fine threshing machines in his barn, 
but still was having a lot of grain threshed out 
either with flails by hand or with small horsepower 
machines. When asked about this, he said that it 
was to give employment to his thresher families ; 
that it was an old custom ; that he gave to each one 
a mark (about 25 cents) per da} T , kept a cow for 
him and in addition gave him 4 per cent of the grain 
that he threshed. Eight families were so employed 
on the place. 

A GERMAN CROP ROTATION. 

Herr Schlange told us that his land was so fertile 
that he could disregard a regular rotation, but more 
or less he would have about the following crops : 
two fields in clover or alfalfa, two in peas, four in 
winter wheat, as many in beets or potatoes, and four 
in oats and barley. He uses large amounts of basic 
slag, and limes with care. He uses also much acid 
phosphate and also nitrate of soda. He learns that 
on his soil kainit or crude potash salt is useful and 
uses it liberally, especially for beets. 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 543 

Herr Schlange had a whole village full of people 
who were employed by him, all living in the center 
of his place in good brick houses. He feels a pa- 
ternal or patriarchal pride in caring for these people 
in many little ways, so that their wages are by no 
means all that they receive. Farmers in his region 
were making money, especially in recent years when 
prices for farm products have been good. Here as 
in France there are money lending associations, and 
farmers get their needed capital for 4 per cent, giv- 
ing mortgages, however, as security for the loans. 

I nearly forget to tell of the white pigs, of which 
they had a great number; all were well cared for. 
In that part of Germany there are streaks of sand 
running through the farms, just as near Berlin 
there are wide stretches of sandy plain. Herr 
Schlange 's farm had a sandy ridge, impossible of 
cultivation, and his pigs ran in part of it. What 
Herr Schlange has that would be of great benefit 
to our sheep breeders is a magnificent type of Sois- 
sonais Merino sheep. Some day I hope we can 
import them. At the time of my visit, Germany 
was reeking with foot-and-mouth disease, so much 
so that on some farms we were not allowed to go be- 
cause the owners were seeking to prevent infection. 

It was Sept. 6, my assigned work was done, al- 
though most imperfectly. I had spent the last day 
at the stock yards in Berlin, seeking there mainly 
white pigs and then more white pigs, for the sausage 
is the national bird of Germany. I had packed my 
bags once more, tipped again for the last time the 



544 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

small army of hotel employes, and was ready to take 
a train for Vlissingen, where would await me a boat 
to England. I was sorry to go without having seen 
and studied more, yet I was so glad to start home- 
ward that I quivered in every nerve. I recall that 
as usual I had the upper berth in the sleeping car, 
and that I endeavored long and faithfully to open 
one of the little transom windows in the roof of the 
car close to my head. My good G'erman fellow-trav- 
eler had tightly closed the window and locked the 
door, the compartment as tiny as could be and con- 
taining two berths. At last, due to my strong knife, 
I got my little transom window opened and breathed 
a sigh of relief, but, what was wrong, no air came 
in. I examined once again and found that back of 
this transom was yet another pane of glass, solidly 
set in a fixed frame. It was a puzzler, but happily I 
had a copy of an American magazine at hand which I 
placed close to the pane that cut me off from the good, 
sweet air of night. I struck it one hard blow with 
an American fist, there was a splintering of glass, 
which fell outward, and a rush of cool, sweet air 
inward. I was saved. Laughing like a naughty 
boy I lay down then and slept the sleep of the man 
who breathes fresh air. 

HOMEWAED BOUND. 

In the morning we were in Holland, coming 
through quaint and picturesque villages and fields. 
At Vlissingen we took ship and crossed to Queens- 
boro on the Thames. I remember that it was a 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 545 

happy ricle across the channel; the water was like 
glass. I was to sail the next day on the Minne- 
waska. The last entry in my journal reads thus : 
"It was a hot night in London; it is cool this morn- 
ing (7:30 o'clock). My train leaves for Tilbury 
Docks at nine. I fear I shall miss the train. Can 
there be any mistake as to the station from which 
it leaves? Oh, I am so happy and excited. I think 
I will call a taxi and get started; the train may 
leave earlier than it is advertised. ' ' What a happy 
thing it was to find at the railway station the Amer- 
icans assembled ready to go to ship. We sailed. 
The Minnewaska was a good ship. Her passengers 
were more than ordinarily interesting and agree- 
able, but still did time drag as we plowed the great 
waves that sprang up to try unsuccessfully to hold 
us back. 

The Minnewaska passed Cape Race. Up to that 
time I had been able to restrain my mind from 
dwelling on the fact that I was coming home. I 
did not dare think of it. Then, next day, we passed 
Nantucket lightship. Even yet I managed to think 
of other things, to talk with pretended interest of 
Patagonia and Peru, of Macedonia, Madagascar 
and the other seaports that I had visited and pre- 
tended to enjoy. That night, however, all sleep 
fled from me. I lay hours in my upper berth, hear- 
ing good Scotch snores below me and opposite me, 
saying to myself, "I will not think of home; I will 
not; I will think of the cost of wool in Iceland and 
the problem of liming the peat bogs near Ben 



546 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

Nevis." Even these entrancing subjects did not 
bring slumber. A sudden inspiration came to me ; 
I slid silently off my perch, grabbed the covers and 
in my pajamas fled to the deck. The soft air of 
America was out there, coming from Long Island 
farms or New Jersey pine forests. I stood at the 
rail and looked at American stars and said over 
and over, ' ' Thank God ! Thank God ! ' ' Then I lay 
down on the soft white pine deck. "I don't care 
whether I sleep or not; we will see the lights of 
America before day," I cried to myself. 

THE COMING OF THE PILOT. 

Then it was that sleep came — sleep happier and 
more restful than I had had for a long time. It 
was American air out there, American and enough 
of it. We were so near to America that I could 
almost swim ashore. I was awakened by another 
American of the cornbelt who was prowling around 
the decks in his bath robe. "Get up, Wing; the 
pilot is coming aboard!" We leaned together over 
the rail ; we saw the electric lights ashore, the great 
flashing lights of the lighthouses. The pilot boat 
was near by; the little dory rowing toward us over 
the long, glassy swell; we felt the warm, fragrant 
air of America. Heaven is no doubt a very good 
sort of place. America seemed good enough for me 
just then. "Is America all right!" we asked the 
pilot as he came clambering up the ladder over the 
ship's sides. "America is always all right," was 
his gruff but good-natured reply. The stars shone 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 547 

warm, bright and friendly. What good shore scents 
came off to us. Below horses neighed in their stalls, 
thinking, perhaps, they were once more nearing 
Prance. I lay down and slept again a little nap. 
There was no need for more anxiety; the American 
pilot was in the wheelhouse ; no disaster could hap- 
pen now; all good events possible would happen in 
due course of time. When the stars paled we were 
near to the Jersey coast. How green the grass on 
the slopes, how beautiful the trees, how good the 
familiar architecture of the homes looked. Oh, what 
is the use f I cannot make you feel what I felt unless 
you will go first to Cape Horn, tarry a while in Pata- 
gonia, dally in Argentina and Uruguay and Brazil, 
live in London, Edinboro and Great Grimsby, exist 
in Paris, eat and sleep in Berlin, Dresden and Bop- 
pard — do all this continuously for nine weary 
months, then you will know whether you love Amer- 
ica. Then ask yourself, as you see the statue of Lib- 
erty looming up before you, what you would ask 
to set your face in the opposite direction and go 
away from America rather than to land? 

Just for the looks of things, though, and because 
critical Europeans who do not know us come along 
our railways in the East, I do wish that some one 
would buy up a lot of land along the Pennsylvania 
Railway in New Jersey and make farms there. Be- 
tween New York and Philadelphia and Washington 
one sees so little of agriculture that one gets no 
hint of the meaning of the American continent. 

How I luxuriated in an American sleeping car. 



548 IN FOREIGN FIELDS 

Early the next morning I was up ; we were in east- 
ern Ohio; the (tills were beautifully green with 
grass ; the forests were rich and glorious ; the corn- 
fields touched my heart. I had not known how tre- 
mendously true it is that I am an American; that 
all of these things, the bluegrass of the roadsides 
and the hills, the trees, the tall maize stalks, the 
orchard-surrounded country homes, were so much 
parts of me. 

Corn in the shock! It startled me. "The 
summer is past, the harvest is ended and gone." I 
had existed away from my friends this weary time. 
"Never again," I declared. At the railway station 
my wife and two of my boys met me ; the third was 
in college. A neighbor had lent his automobile. 
We drove a circuitous route home, just to be longer 
out in the glorious country of central Ohio. We 
crossed Darby Creek. We saw cattle on the blue- 
grass, corn in the shock, green lawns rich with fall 
flowers and the wild things along the fence rows. 
It was borne in on me with increasing wonder, in 
all the world there is but one America, in all Amer- 
ica there is nothing quite like the cornbelt, and in 
all the cornbelt there is nothing quite like — there, I 
must not boast of the region that some of us chose 
in which to be born. 

And yet my happiness of home-coming was not 
quite unalloyed. What a lot has been lost from my 
life. David had grown more than an inch since I 
saw him last, and little William had stretched ap- 
preciably. Think of all the days when, had I been 



TRAVEL SKETCHES BY JOS. E. WING 549 

home, I could have enjoyed the companionship of 
wife, boys and friends. What good neighbors I 
have. And now, as I write, I have been at home for 
three days (incredible as it seems), and have only 
wandered around as I did when a boy, wandered 
in the old orchards, marveling at the wealth of 
fruit, and in the fields at the tall, heavily-eared 
maize, and marveling also at the alfalfa, the great 
oaks and walnut trees of Woodland Farm, and the 
love and kindness showered on me from every hand. 
I guess it is worth the cost, being so long away and 
getting home again. I do not know. 



MAY 25 1913 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



010 091 634 4 



